Billboard's inaugural list of music's most influential investors, bankers and advisers
is debuting its inaugural Finance 50 list to shine a spotlight on the most influential investors, bankers and expert advisers who are steering significant capital into the music industry — and the technology and infrastructure shaping it.
The dealmakers on this list are distributed into two categories: The Money, which spotlights the individuals making the investment decisions; and The Advisers, which honors the financial experts at banks and valuation firms whose input is critical to cash flow. The entrants on this list are presented alphabetically by company. They were responsible for sending tens of billions of dollars to music companies in 2025 and hundreds of billions since 2010. These are not the people who make the art — only a few call themselves musicians. But they’re professionals at spotting value, and they’ve staked their reputations on recruiting the dollars, euros and reais to support music. This list is intended to honor that support and study the impact it will have on the future of music. The dealmakers on this list are distributed into two categories: The Money, which spotlights the individuals making the investment decisions; and The Advisers, which honors the financial experts at banks and valuation firms whose input is critical to cash flow. The entrants on this list are presented alphabetically by company. They were responsible for sending tens of billions of dollars to music companies in 2025 and hundreds of billions since 2010. These are not the people who make the art — only a few call themselves musicians. But they’re professionals at spotting value, and they’ve staked their reputations on recruiting the dollars, euros and reais to support music. This list is intended to honor that support and study the impact it will have on the future of music.Known for co-founding Kobalt Music Group, which catalyzed a movement toward technology for faster, more transparent royalty collections, Ahdritz sees the industry at the precipice of another structural transformation: With independent creators driving a significant share of recorded-music revenue, artificial intelligence tools reducing costs and accelerating output, and new distribution models delivering content direct to fans, companies that engage fans represent a $25 billion market in the coming years, Ahdritz says. His $20 million fund has backed both traditional music infrastructure and other creator engagement platforms . “We invest where culture meets technology — backing entrepreneurs who create transparency in opaque creator markets and enable direct relationships between artists and audiences,” Ahdritz says.Dolin’s job is to connect sports and entertainment leaders to what is often their first venture investment and leverage their insights and influence to grow Andreessen Horowitz’s portfolio companies and guide its future investments. He’s recruited Pharrell Williams, The Weeknd, Anderson .Paak and Bubba Wallace as limited partners and co-investors; helped BroadLight Capital, J Balvin, Zac Efron and R3hab contribute to health-tech platform Function Health’s $298 million series B funding round; and was the catalyst for marketing partnerships between Post Malone and Questlove and the online collectibles shop Whatnot. “The future of music belongs to the creatives and companies that share ownership in the tools driving the next generation of art, business and cultural influence … where artists are not just using new tools but co-owning them,” Dolin says.Solomon and Sipio are a rare pair on Wall Street. Sipio, a Frank Zappa-loving keyboardist, and Solomon, a Smashing Pumpkins fan since hearing their first Virgin demo record, handled music’s biggest deal of the year with Concord’s fourth asset-backed securitization raise of nearly $1.8 billion. Having handled three other Concord ABS deals worth a combined $3.15 billion and helped Sony Music Group finance deals to buy one of the most valuable music catalogs of all time — Queen — the duo has made Apollo the go-to bank for bespoke financial structuring. Before joining Apollo in 2021, Sipio studied music at Northeastern University and then at the New England Conservatory of Music. His life almost went in a different direction when his retro pop band signed with talent agency Red Light Management, but he ultimately got his JD in corporate and intellectual property law and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. He joined Goldman Sachs straight out of business school and quickly became its resident music expert on the technology, media and telecommunications investment banking team. Solomon, who helps lead the private equity firm’s investment strategy in media and entertainment, grew up in the entertainment industry; his father founded the film and TV distribution company Telepictures, now owned by Warner Bros. Solomon says the partnerships with Concord and Sony have allowed Apollo to serve the industry “intelligently. We provide the capital in a way that is the most effective, the most efficient and the most useful to them.” Sipio, who moonlights as a New York University professor teaching a course titled Corporate Finance and Valuation in the Music Industry, says Concord’s and Sony’s evergreen assets are perfect for Apollo’s long-term focus. Several gems in their catalogs are approaching valuable milestones, Sipio says, pointing to Concord’s 50th-anniversary edition of Genesis’“These companies think of themselves as stewards of the most valuable intellectual property that exists,” Sipio says. “They have this very large responsibility to do right by the art, and those companies feel like they can call us we are resident experts in their industry.”Since joining Ares Management in mid-2024, Sagoo brought the company into its first high-profile music deal: contributing alongside Northleaf Partners to $500 million in structured financing for GoldState Music, which owns royalties to songs including Ye’s “Flashing Lights,” Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy” and Panic! at the Disco’s “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.” Sagoo says Ares looks for “catalogs with diversified genre appeal and strong historical performance.” Beyond catalogs, Ares is exploring investing and financing in the indie services areas — “rights management, royalty tracking or distribution infrastructure” — and in companies serving emerging genres from Latin America, Africa and Asia. “Rising streaming penetration and the monetization of local content … create attractive opportunities for investors who can navigate cultural and regulatory nuances,” he says.Bain Capital and Warner Music Group’s $1.2 billion joint venture was a year in the making, but the 50-50 equity partnership is off to the races with catalog acquisitions. But acquiring catalogs and growing their value is only one opportunity, Rufino says. His team of statistical and music valuation experts is leveraging Warner’s data to come up with catalog value creation plans and also lend advice — and maybe in the future, capital — for business acquisitions. During Rufino’s time at Brookfield, he led a $2 billion investment in Larry Mestel’s Primary Wave and worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber to bring theimmersive experience Masquerade to market. He sees significant opportunity in utilizing Warner treasures like David Bowie’s catalog in immersive experiences. “This feels different than a typical financial investment,” Rufino says, adding his team meets as frequently with publishing and catalog music division heads Guy Moot and Kevin Gore as they do with Warner CEO Robert Kyncl.The mission of Best Nights, liquor company Mast Jägermeister’s venture investing division, is to shape the future of nightlife and live entertainment through companies like GigPig, a venue-booking platform for artists that cuts out the middleman; Soundboks, maker of the “loudest, portable and most durable speakers for parties”; HustleSasa, a live-entertainment ticketing and events platform in Africa; and Lapee, whose female urinals are used at Berlin’s legendary Berghain nightclub. With co-investors over the years including Y Combinator, Lightspeed and Andreessen Horowitz, de Silva added live concerts and expanding into Africa and Southeast Asia to Best Nights’ priorities in 2025. “We believe people are yearning for authentic and memorable experiences related to music and entertainment,” de Silva says. “With technological advancements in music production, distribution and consumption, we prioritize the ‘in-person’ and ‘in real life’ aspect to ensure that art is created and enjoyed in a human way.”The music investments made by Braude’s division go back more than a decade. In 2015, BlackRock backed Alignment Artist Capital, which provides musicians with financing, and the following year invested $300 million in Primary Wave. In 2022, it teamed up with Warner Music Group and Lylette Pizarro to launch Influence Media Partners, which has amassed a portfolio with rights from over 30 catalogs including those of DJ Khaled, Future and Enrique Iglesias, and raised $360 million a year ago through a private placement ABS that attracted Nuveen, Aflac and HPS Investment Partners as investors. Braude applauds Influence’s focus on building brand value from artists’ name and likeness rights, and says, “We see compelling opportunities … to unlock incremental value beyond traditional royalties artists are pairing high-quality IP with new forms of engagement.”Perennially important to the music industry, Abbas’ “tac opps team” with Henry Tian and Kestnbaum’s private equity division with Sam Kahn and Sarah Schoch spent 2025 working on scaling and improving their portfolio companies. Within tac opps, Recognition Music Group CEO Ben Katovsky consolidated two of the old Hipgnosis businesses into Recognition Music Group; sold one of them — Hipgnosis Songs Group — to Sony; and raised another $372 million through an ABS, the first music ABS to be rated by two major agencies: Fitch and S&P. Recognition is now “a scaled, data-driven platform… enabling more sophisticated catalog management and deeper partnerships across the industry,” Abbas says. Kestnbaum’s group remains “adamant about being aligned with creators and IP holders” and continues to develop partnerships like Ryan Tedder’s Runner Music, launched with Melody Holdings in 2023. Blackstone also helped SESAC raise $889 million through a whole-business securitization in 2025.“Brookfield has decades of experience investing, owning and operating in real assets like real estate, infrastructure and renewable energy and transition assets,” says Shah, who sits on the Canadian asset manager’s elite investment committee. And yet, it never considered investing in music until confidante Bruce Karsh of Oaktree Capital Management recommended that executives meet with Primary Wave CEO Larry Mestel. Primary Wave’s model of acquiring stakes in iconic artists’ estates and developing multichannel content to continually expose new audiences to the music they own convinced this self-described “boring” investor that music could drive predictable cash flows over decades, mirroring “Brookfield’s approach to owning, operating and investing … long-term value.” Brookfield, led by then-Brookfield managing partner Angelo Rufino, bought a minority interest in Primary Wave and added more than $2 billion to its balance sheet in 2023. Shah says Brookfield’s support is ongoing and Primary Wave aims to grow the value of its catalog from $5 billion currently to more than $10 billion within four years.As a child, Shah and his brother unwittingly subscribed to receive 10 records a month for $2. “I remember listening toCarlyle has invested about $14 billion, including $2.2 billion from Popov’s division, in sports, entertainment and music companies since 2017, starting with Clair Global, the leading sound and staging conglomerate, followed by another in Universal Music Group, which it exited early last year. In 2022, Carlyle co-founded Litmus with music industry veterans Dan McCarroll and Hank Forsyth with an initial investment of $500 million. Litmus has acquired 5,000 copyrights, including those of Randy Newman, Benny Blanco, Keith Urban and Katy Perry. Last year, Litmus obtained rights to the catalogs of Rauw Alejandro, Juice WRLD, Maluma and Ozuna through its acquisition of Opus Music Group, financed with a $400 million credit facility arranged through another Finance 50 honoree, Charles Johnson at Truist Securities.Founded by former SoundCloud and Vimeo CEO Trainor, Creator Partners has invested in a slew of talent and tech companies “that empower creators with innovative technology build durable businesses that move culture forward,” Trainor says. In the past 18 months, it has invested in the performing rights organization BMI, alongside New Mountain Capital, and Reverb, the popular online marketplace for used music gear and instruments. As entrepreneurs and “music geeks at heart,” he says, Creator acquired Reverb from Etsy and has returned it to a stand-alone enterprise. With funding from investors, including Trainor himself and Fender parent company Servco Pacific, he sees “many opportunities to invest in the still-building waves of transformation playing out across music and creativity.”Private capital behemoth CVC leaned into opportunities in the live industry over the past year, investing alongside KKR in European music festivals operator Superstruct. Visser says the company was drawn to the Superstruct team’s “best-in-class IP” — it organizes some 80 festivals, including Hungary’s Sziget and the world’s largest heavy metal festival, Germany’s Wacken Open Air — and fan-first mindset. “The music industry revolves around the fans and the artists,” Visser says. “Just like we have seen in sports, fans want to get closer to the artists, understanding their lives and feeling like they are part of it.” Visser says CVC and KKR will tap into their networks of music and media companies to further scale the festival operator’s promotions. “Social media is key to modern-day fandom and why we believe IP-focused investments continue to be attractive,” he says.“Joris Voorn’s live sets or melodic music from Mees Salome. Or if we really need to focus, some hard rock.”An investor in music financing platform beatBread since its seed round in 2021, Deciens has backed beatBread through multiple equity and credit raises since, including its $124 million fundraising in August alongside Citigroup. Sachdev says beatBread filled an “infrastructure gap” that emerged in the streaming era amid the rise of the independent sector, and Deciens brought expertise in lending, access to capital and the know-how to scale its fintech platform. Sachdev continues to see opportunity in the independent music companies that are skillful at breaking new artists and creating compelling business-to-business offerings. “As the major labels’ central role changed,” Sachdev says, “a clear opening has emerged to build modern infrastructure, and artist demand for better solutions is urgent.”Europe’s largest private equity firm remains an influential investor in music, not least of all because it aligned itself behind Believe CEO Denis Ladegaillerie with TCV in supporting his effort to take the independent artist label and services company private. Jonsson, who founded EQT in 1994, will step down this year, and shareholders will vote on whether to elect Salata, currently the chair of EQT Asia, who has been nominated to replace Jonsson as EQT’s chairperson. Jonsson remains an investor in the Sweden-based music investment company Pophouse, which in early 2025 raised 1.2 billion euros for catalog acquisitions and immersive experiences.Fairway Partners is a venture capital firm investing in music, gaming and creator economy startups that “provide infrastructure at the intersection of IP and technology … with defensible technical moats.” The firm holds equity investments or has provided structured finance solutions for the royalty infrastructure company Mogul; AI music creation co-pilot OWL Duet; content licensing infrastructure Threes AI; and the immersive experiences company Lumenate. A partner at Fairway, Lauer founded the boutique brokerage Outpost Partners, which provides financial advice to music companies and festivals, including Sónar in Barcelona. “New distribution layers — systems that help the right content reach the right individual at the right moment — will become essential,” Lauer says. As AI amplifies the amount of content created, that provides opportunities for companies that “reshape how music is surfaced, recommended and monetized across platforms.”In little more than two years, Morris has led Chicago-based private equity firm Flexpoint Ford to invest over $400 million in two catalog companies, GoldState Music and Duetti; indie music platform Create Music Group; and New York-based record label Nettwerk. “We’re focused on investing in the service layer of the music economy — companies that provide the infrastructure enabling independent artists, labels and publishers to scale,” Morris says. Flexpoint has supported fast-growing Create’s acquisition of electronic labels Monstercat, !K7 and Cr2, as well as deadmau5’s catalog in 2025. “We see compelling opportunity in small- and mid-market catalog acquisitions,” he says, “portfolios that fall below the radar but offer stable income and meaningful growth potential.”Great Mountain Partners is a $10 billion private markets investor that has been investing in media rights since 2005. It is an investor in Concord through a fund that manages money from Michigan Retirement Systems and Great Mountain’s management team. Over that time, Michigan Retirement Systems has grown its investment to more than 90% of Concord. Connecticut-based Great Mountain usually stays behind the scenes, but the firm was mentioned in a press release in July when Concord landed the biggest deal of the year with its $1.765 billion ABS. “Our collaboration has generated great financial results,” Rotolo says, “and allowed us all to execute our vision to build a best-in-class global, independent music company in Concord.”In one of music’s biggest acquisitions in recent years, Hellman & Friedman acquired a significant majority stake in the boutique performing rights organization Global Music Rights. The deal, which closed in late 2024, valued GMR at $3.3 billion. Healy, who led the investment, as well as HF’s investments in Formula One, Axel Springer, ProSiebenSat.1 and Nielsen, describes his firm as “partnering with music legend Irving Azoff,” who co-founded GMR with Randy Grimmett. “We are bullish on the long-term growth of the music end-market driven by growth in streaming, live and experience,” Healy says of his fund, which has more than $100 billion in assets under management. “We are excited by businesses that are both exposed to the music-market tailwinds and are high-quality franchises.”Spetzler has led $5 billion in music and audio investments during his time at Francisco Partners and now at Jamen Capital. This includes buying majority stakes in Kobalt, Native Instruments and Muse Group. A western Virginia transplant, Spetzler lives in London and serves on the boards of Soundtrack, which he invested in with Matt Pincus; Recognition Music Group; and Pipeline Media, a business that lends money to companies so they can supply artists with advances on their music, which Spetzler started in 2025. He has made smaller investments in un:hurd music and Nat Zilkha’s Firebird Music Holdings and a handful of sports companies, like Venezia FC. Spetzler says Jamen Capital is “backing companies, technologies and people who bring more value back to artists and IP owners” in the areas of live, tech-enhanced royalty collection and financial services for indie companies.Khosla was the first venture capital firm to invest in OpenAI, which has its own music effort underway, and its other music bets include Splash and Hook, startups that invite users to remix and create music while helping established artists build their fandoms and collect royalties in the process. “The theme in music that I think is most interesting is, ‘How do you create closer connectivity between the musician and their fan base?’ “Once you create that community, making money off it is not that difficult. The investments I want to make facilitate that,” Kaul says, noting that he’s only interested in backing startups that compensate artists fairly and “show them respect.” One opportunity Kaul sees as ripe for the industry: allowing fans to invest in an album by issuing tokens correlated to the number of streams it generates, so that as the album gains traction, the artist is “making money for their fans.”A longtime investor in music assets, KKR over the past 18 months has led a group of investors that bought $1 billion worth of music asset-backed securities issued by Sherrese Clarke’s HarbourView Equity Partners. KKR also acquired Superstruct Entertainment, the operator of 80 festivals in Europe and Australia, for a reported $1.4 billion. In early 2024, KKR sold its stake in Chord Music Partners in part to Universal Music Group for $240 million, giving Dundee Partners control of Chord with a majority stake. Besides Dundee, KKR has partnered with BMG and its parent, Bertelsmann, on and off for the last 15 to 20 years; and before that, it even backed WMG in an unsuccessful attempt to buy BMG publishing back in 2006, when Bertelsmann was selling off most of its owned music assets.Mignano has been working at the intersection of music and technology since the streaming revolution. Beginning at Atlantic Records, where he rose to lead digital product development during the transition to streaming, Mignano left in 2012 and later co-founded Anchor, a podcast distribution platform that Spotify acquired for more than $150 million in 2019. Now at Lightspeed, he has a seat at the table for the next audio revolution: generative AI. Lightspeed participated in Suno’s $250 million series C funding round, which closed in November. Mignano is focused on “backing technology that expands who gets to be a creator. AI unlocks revenue streams and fan experiences that didn’t exist before. The opportunity isn’t just creating better tools for existing artists but infrastructure for millions of new ones.”The investor who led Suno’s influential $250 million fundraising is a classically trained pianist who studied biochemical sciences and economics at Harvard and streams music “12 hours a day — mostly classical or electronic sets.” Menlo Ventures’ investment helped Suno earn a valuation of $2.45 billion and emerge as the clear market leader in generative AI music while rattling a music industry still suffering from memories of the Napster era. It was among the biggest checks her firm has ever cut, and Wu Martin wrapped the deal days before giving birth to her first child.Menlo Ventures has nearly five decades of experience as an early-stage investor, including in Uber, Roku, Poshmark, Chime and Warby Parker. Wu Martin and colleagues C.C. Gong and Sabrina Lu specialize in consumer and gaming venture investing. Suno has been celebrated by creators like Telisha “Nikki” Jones, who used Suno to create music through alias Xania Monet and land a record deal. It is also becoming a marketing tool for influencers like Portland, Ore.-based “emo realtor” Brandon Weeks, who used it to create spot-on screamo songs about his “sinful commission” and “backyards offering peace I’ll never take.” Wu Martin says Suno’s growth shows that the company has a product people love, and it is allowing more people to create. Despite being an elite pianist who studied from the age of 4, including with renowned classical pianist and musicologist Robert Levin at Harvard, she says she was never good enough to go pro. “After rooming with Yuja Wang one summer at the Aspen Music Festival, it made me realize how insanely good the very best are and I wasn’t that,” Wu Martin says. Wu Martin explains that by lowering barriers for amateur musicians, Suno could “greatly expand the music industry.” “I predict in five years it will be a destination for how people connect and interact with music via their friends and favorite artists alike,” she says.Founded a decade ago, Brazil-based Mindset Ventures has raised five funds to invest in a total of 75 early-stage technology startups. In June 2025, Ibri and Grammy-winning composer Cantor Santiago launched the firm’s inaugural MusicTech fund with $2 million and a slew of music industry advisers, including former Sony Music senior vp of A&R Drew Thurlow and lawyers Cliff Fluet and Heather Rafter. Mindset’s first round of investments went to tech and AI-enabled companies, including Audoo, un:hurd music, Music AI, Aiode, ALLOY and OwlDuet. The firm is raising a second MusicTech fund targeting $20 million and is building a pipeline of investments. “We are interested in the usage and impact of data and AI in the industry, technology enhancing the infrastructure on how catalogs are managed and how royalties get measured, collected and distributed,” Ibri says, as well as “technology that enables more and transparency in the industry.”Brazil’s largest venture capital firm and the first Silicon Valley-style firm in Latin America, Monashees has invested billions in 155 companies over the past 20 years, including Music AI, the makers of the Moises music app for musicians and producers, and Indaband, an open-source platform for music collaboration. With investors across multiple continents, Monashees leads or co-leads series A and seed funding rounds for companies that are based in Latin America, founded by Latin America entrepreneurs or that serve Latin America as a core strategic market. An amateur pianist, Acher has personally invested in the music tech venture fund Mindset Music, as well as KLAY Vision, a Los Angeles-based AI-licensing company that recently inked deals with all three majors, and he’s an executive producer of a documentary about Brazil treasure and frequent Prince and Michael Jackson collaborator Paulinho da Costa,In 2023, Smalls led Wall Street investment bank and global wealth management firm Morgan Stanley’s first significant music investment: launching a joint venture with Kobalt Music with $700 million to invest in music copyrights. Morgan Stanley’s Tactical Value team, where Smalls sits, invests across equity and debt in a wide range of private, complex companies. As a partner at bond investor Michael Milken’s family office, Silver Rock Financial, Smalls has covered music investments since 2012, when he joined and led their investments in music royalties. As more institutional investors have warmed to music assets, Smalls says more varied music assets have come up for investment. “Investor sentiment — drives the availability and cost of capital — will have the greatest impact on music investments in the next year,” Smalls says. “It can change quickly, but I think they feel relatively good about music going into next year.”A pioneering publisher who sold SONGS to Kobalt in 2017, Pincus has invested $180 million since 2022 through his MUSIC fund in Splice, HIFI, LVRN and DICE, the lattermost of which was acquired by Fever in June. In the fall of 2025, MUSIC, which is backed by Liontree, Jonathan Soros’ One Madison Group and Schusterman Family Investments, teamed up with Matt Spetzler’s Jamen Capital to invest in Soundtrack, a Spotify-like streaming service for businesses. Pincus is optimistic that a decade of growing buy-side demand for music copyrights is proof of permanent financial interest. As investors dig deeper in the world’s repertoire, Pincus says he anticipates a “shift away from a land grab mentality toward one focused on repertoire strategy. This will require music people who know how to do the work.”In 2024, the music industry witnessed three $1 billion deals. The first deal to break through that valuation milestone was New Mountain Capital’s acquisition of BMI. Now, more than a year-and-a-half in, New Mountain is “very focused on expanding and growing BMI to the benefit of its affiliates — 1.5 million songwriters, composers and publishers,” says Masucci, who serves as BMI’s board chairman. “We believe creators at every stage of their career contribute real value to the music ecosystem. By investing in the right scalable technology, services and creative opportunities, companies like BMI can materially benefit all creators, which will lead to financial reward for investors.” With over $60 billion in assets under management, Oshinsky describes its “investment to acquire a controlling position in BMI as a major milestone” for New Mountain, and says, “We believe BMI is stronger than ever.”Northleaf Capital is a longtime investor in the music industry, and since Wei has been at the helm, the firm has led more than $500 million in financing for companies including GoldState Music, Cutting Edge Group, Duetti and Lyric Capital. Recognized as one of’s 2025 Legends & Leaders and an adviser on the National Music Publishers Association’s Music Investor Council, Wei has supported the catalogs of chart-toppers such as Ed Sheeran and The Who with his structured finance and private lending offerings. Invested/financed The Weeknd-Lyric Capital joint venture, Warner Bros. Discovery-Cutting Edge Group joint venture Swiss-based Partners Group may be the biggest music royalties investor you’ve never heard of. Since 1996, Partners has invested $240 billion in private equity, private credit, real estate, infrastructure and royalties, which it first invested in through its family office. In 2024, Otter launched Partners’ cross-sector royalties fund, which is targeting $30 billion in health care, energy transition and entertainment royalty assets — including $6 billion to $9 billion in music assets — by 2033. Partners does catalog acquisitions and bespoke loans, often with multidecade time horizons, such as the financing it contributed for joint ventures by The Weeknd and Lyric Capital, and Warner Bros. Discovery and Cutting Edge Group. “We see huge investment opportunities across the music space,” Otter says. “With decades of combined team experience, we are not tourists in this space. We are here for the long term.”Fischberg has grown PIMCO’s music investments from scratch five years ago into a “scaled endeavor” today that “has invested significant capital across music catalogs, private market debt solutions and securitizations,” he says. PIMCO’s most public investment has been in Olivier Chastan’s catalog acquisition company Iconoclast, which owns certain rights to the catalogs of artists such as Tony Bennett, Robbie Robertson and Marianne Faithfull, as well as the publishing rights for Diplo’s Mad Decent label and songs written by Lady Gaga’s frequent collaborator Nick Monson. “Between social media and video games playing an increasing role in discovery and algorithms impacting consumption,” Fischberg says, “there is a great opportunity to grow consumption and boost returns through an active approach to managing music.”. “Danced to it at my wedding a few months ago and listened to it so often before. Always provides a jolt of energy.”Providence has over 20 years of experience investing in the music and live entertainment industries, and it has recently reaped the rewards of exiting investments in companies like TAIT, the global supplier for touring staging and live events, and Superstruct, a music festival operator. Providence did not disclose the returns earned from either exit, but Marimow said the TAIT investment and exit “resulted in significant value creation and delivered strong returns … demonstrating our ability to generate value even in highly dynamic and challenging environments.” In 2025, it sold off a chunk of Tempo Music Investments, giving up controlling interest in the firm to co-founder and partner Warner Music Group, and bought a majority stake in Rock-It Cargo parent GCL. Marimow says the firm sees “compelling opportunities” in the live music and entertainment industries.Davis and Puthenveetil are known as much for their music investments as they are for their advisory work at companies raising capital and doing mergers and acquisitions. They are investors in and sit on the boards of C3 Presents, SoundCloud, Firebird, Music Infra, Hook and most recently Duetti, and in the past 12 months they also have served as the exclusive advisers to Stem on its sale to Concord and to CVC on the acquisition of its minority stake in Superstruct. Puthenveetil says he sees the greatest opportunity among businesses serving the global independent ecosystem. “ is still in the early stages of development and growth,” he says. “Whether we are investors or advisers, we want to be the trusted partner to entrepreneurs as they think through any inflection point in their business or journey.”Searchlight Capital Partners’ first foray in music was in 2015, when Glatt led an equity investment in TouchTunes. Over the next decade, he says Searchlight, an investor in TelevisaUnivision, waited while music proved it could transition to and profit from streaming. After a successful exit from TouchTunes, a pandemic-era success story, Searchlight went into business with two established partners — Sam Hendel’s Dundee Partners and Universal Music Group — investing $400 million for a significant minority stake in Chord Music Partners in 2025. Chord has since added a 49% stake in Morgan Wallen’s early masters to its portfolio of Beyoncé, Adele and The Weeknd songs. “We believe there are opportunities across music rights and IP,” Glatt says, “where the stability and predictability of underlying cash flows make them comparable to infrastructure-like assets to distribution and administration businesses.”When asked about Shamrock’s 2025 highlights, the partners said simply: “We were thrilled to reunite Taylor Swift with her music. It was a great outcome for all involved.” Shamrock still owns significant music assets, including Vine Alternative Investments, which it acquired in 2024 and includes Calvin Harris’ works and ownership interests in some 550 feature films, over 2,000 hours of TV programming and 450 other songs. Shamrock began investing in music in 1988, when it acquired the Music Plus record store and video rental chain, which it sold to Blockbuster Music in 1992. “We are excited about the powerful tailwinds driving music discovery through new technologies, interactive formats and the accelerating connectivity between music, gaming and other forms of digital entertainment,” Russo says. Adds Sklar: “As discovery becomes more seamless and global, we expect the value of high-quality, evergreen catalogs to continue to grow.”on vinyl. “I won it on the Jersey Shore boardwalk after putting 25 cents on the ace of spades card.” Sklar: Young MC’s StoneThe prominent California-based growth equity firm is known for being an early investor in Netflix, Airbnb and Zillow. However, it has also invested more than $1 billion in music companies over the past 15 years, including Spotify and Believe. TCV’s investment in Spotify started 13 years ago, and while it recently offloaded around $190 million in shares, Marshall remains Spotify’s lead independent director. He also oversees TCV’s investment in Believe, which began more than 12 years ago. Marshall applauds Believe’s “efficient monetization platform for artists” and says his firm has always “focused on platforms that provide a differentiated experience to music fans while also empowering artists to earn a living from their work.”Since 2010, TPG has invested over $6 billion in media assets, with music investments making up nearly half of that. TPG’s investments have been guided by the thesis that technological changes result in changes in distribution and that the rise of digital has driven the amount of content and demand for it skyward. To capitalize on that, TPG over the years has bought into talent agency CAA , streaming giant Spotify , iconic guitar maker Fender , IP licensing business Musixmatch and boutique performing rights organization Global Music Rights . By investing in successful companies serving different layers of the music ecosystem, TPG has benefited from the industry’s exponential growth, the executives say.New York-based multifamily office Ulysses Management has over $1 billion in capital under management, including from general partners and their families like the heirs to the fortune of former Oppenheimer & Co. chairman and successful hedge funder Jack Nash. Founded in 1997, Ulysses has made its most significant investments in music in Antares Audio Technologies, the developer of Auto-Tune, which dates back to 2019. Rando sits on the board of Antares.A maker of premium musical instruments since 1887, Yamaha launched the Yamaha Music Innovations Fund in May 2025 with $50 million to support early-stage startups in the creative industry. Under Sugino, Kahn says they are focused on investing in software that remakes and improves creative tools and expands who can create; startups that get artists paid faster by improving messy workflows; AI; and “new modes of artist-to-fan monetization.” Kahn previously led Crush Ventures, the investment division of music management company Crush Music, which has shepherded the careers of Nirvana, Train, Weezer, Panic! at the Disco and Lorde. The fund invested $5.3 million in five companies in 2025, including Nero, which lets creators review fan-submitted content in livestreams, and Mogul, a music registrations tool.Artisan is a sought-after, low-profile adviser on acquisitions, catalog sales and capital raises. In the past 18 months, it has handled 20 transactions totaling $3 billion, including The Weeknd’s catalog deal, the sale of Jason Aldean’s catalog to BMG, the sale of Daddy Yankee’s catalog to Concord and Monstercat’s sale to Create Music Group. Since it was established in 2018, Artisan has advised on 35 financings, including recent capital raises for Rezonate Music Rights, GoldState Music and Iconic Artists Group. Richards says he sees the most potential in the portfolios built by subgenre experts who acquire niche music rights. “ artists and labels who helped build these genres in the first place bring credibility, brand equity and community trust that simply can’t be replicated,” he says. “It’s fascinating to watch how they leverage that authenticity to close deals that others wouldn’t be able to.”Responsible for establishing Barclays as a leading bank for music asset-backed securities, Sabri says this once-niche product “has evolved into a fully institutionalized asset class supported by deep, diversified demand … ultimately allowing us to support the creative economy by channeling more capital into the hands of artists, rights owners and the platforms that empower them.” Barclays was involved in more than $4 billion in securitizations over the past 14 months, including a combined $3.32 billion for Recognition, HarbourView Equity Partners, Duetti and SESAC. Sabri previously worked at Apollo on music securitizations, including Concord’s $1.8 billion ABS in 2022, and at Goldman Sachs. Sabri says demand is currently outstripping supply, and she expects more securitizations like Duetti’s. “Platforms that focus on artist advances, have frontline exposure or concentrate on more targeted catalog/market segments may increasingly find pathways into the ABS market,” Sabri says.One of the industry’s most trusted music valuation experts, Massarsky had a full-circle moment in 2025 when he served as financial counsel to the estate of Harry Chapin, whose songs he used to play for his kids in the 1970s. “His messaging about fatherhood was very telling, and his phrasing about optimistic outcomes was helpful to me as a young father.” After founding Massarsky Consulting in 1992, Massarsky and Nari Matsuura established themselves as the industry’s first catalog valuation experts before selling the practice to Citrin Cooperman in 2022. Citrin’s music and entertainment valuation practice handled over 550 music catalogs worth a combined total north of $10.6 billion in 2025. Massarsky says the best job he has had since he worked for Hal David at ASCAP was providing financial counsel to Chapin’s estate this year. “I hold tight to the virtues I learned from their father/husband,” he says. “I guess ‘All my life is a circle.’ ”City National agented or participated in more than $700 million worth of new financing in 2025, and Colletta says she sees increasing demand for financing in the independent sector for labels and publishers, clients the bank has financed for two decades. Wang, whose work straddles the entertainment and sports worlds, says City National is leaning into the ongoing growth in live entertainment, committing to “financing venues and entertainment districts that support a robust and healthy music ecosystem… for artists to develop their talent, grow their fan base and build lasting connections with their audiences.” As a Los Angeles-based bank, City National donated $3 million to L.A. fire relief efforts, including support for the Entertainment Industry Foundation, “reflecting our commitment to the communities we serve and the creative professBazoian and his team have arranged and participated in about $15 billion worth of senior secured credit and asset backed securities for the entertainment industry over the past two years. They arranged senior secured and multicredit facilities worth $1 billion for Chord Music Partners, $450 million for Concord, $325 million for Cutting Edge Group and $200 million for HarbourView Equity Partners. It was also the joint lead arranger on a $500 million ABS warehouse facility used to support Warner Music Group and Bain Capital’s new joint venture. Bazoian sees the greatest investment opportunities in companies providing artists advance financing and Latin genre catalogs. While the most valuable catalogs to date have belonged to Queen, Michael Jackson and The Weeknd, Bazoian says it could be Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny in the future. “Artists with broad, geographically diverse fan bases will also create the greatest value.”Siegel, Goldman’s top investment banker for entertainment, and the newly recruited Kim — who joined Goldman from Morgan Stanley — advised on more than $12 billion in mergers and acquisitions and financing transactions over the past two years, Siegel says. Goldman led the credit facility underpinning Warner Music Group and Bain Capital’s music catalog joint venture; advised Downtown Music on the sale to Universal Music Group; advised Universal Music Group on its investment in Chord Music Partners; advised BMI when New Mountain Capital acquired its majority stake; advised Denis Ladegaillerie, EQT and TCV on the group’s privatization of Believe; advised Influence Media Partners on its debt securitization; and helped Broadway Licensing Group with its sale to Concord. Apart from the ongoing growth for music assets thanks to paid streaming subscriptions, Siegel says the firm sees opportunities in the “superfan platforms and live-performance formats that are engaging music fans and audiences in new ways.”Siegel: “I’ve been on a fun. kick after one of my sons learned ‘We Are Young’ for a concert.” Kim: Queen.Jimenez has overseen some of music’s highest-profile mergers and acquisitions and catalog sales — acting as a matchmaker between global superstars, music executives and billionaire funds — but he’ll never say who. “At times, discretion is critical,” he says. His team handled $2 billion in deals in 2025, including advising Tempo when Providence sold part of its stake to Warner Music Group and helping sell Rock-It Cargo to Providence. Past notable deals include advising Irving Azoff’s Global Music Rights when TPG sold its stake to Hellman & Friedman; helping Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group land investment from HPS Investment Partners; and counseling New Mountain Capital on its acquisition of BMI. Jimenez is also leading the Moelis team serving as exclusive financial adviser to Netflix on its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros.Music executives describe Nashville-based Pinnacle as the best big bank with a small-town feel. In 2025, Ross, an Atlanta-based adviser, and Moats’ team issued $1 billion-plus in new senior loans to music companies. Moats declined to name his clients, but he says he has seen a “noticeable increase in artists and writers borrowing against their catalog,” which allows them to monetize their works without selling the assets. Pinnacle issued 27 new loan facilities secured by music catalogs in 2025. “Assisting some of the world’s most respected creators in achieving their financial goals while maintaining ownership of their catalog has been particularly rewarding,” Moats says.Dunn and Law’s team closed five deals with an aggregate enterprise value of $3 billion over the past 18 months, including transactions involving Concord, Universal Music Group and Sony, such as the lattermost’s acquisition of Hipgnosis Songs Group. The firm also completed $350 million worth of advisory work, including serving longtime clients Pulse Music Group and the estate of Michael Jackson, and its Red Brick Advisors launched a music and entertainment IP valuation service led by Sachin Sagger. Demand from institutional capital and new financing models make these services “increasingly vital to the expansion and evolution of the industry,” Law says. While Dunn notes that there remains significant investor interest in iconic catalogs, “there is significant potential for real returns — albeit with more risk — in backing artist and repertoire platforms.”CJ — as industry executives in the know call him — and his team were involved in $4 billion in syndicated loans and asset-backed securities for music companies like Duetti, Litmus Music and Lyric Capital in 2025. Truist supported Influence Media Partners on its $360 million ABS announced in January 2025 and handled Kobalt’s $700 million financing deal with Morgan Stanley in 2024, serving as lead arranger for Kobalt’s $450 million senior secured credit facility and joint lead bookrunner for its $264 million ABS. Though the economic landscape for music assets and streaming platforms is rapidly evolving, investor appetite continues to surge, CJ says. “There continues to be strong demand for music as an asset class,” he adds. “However, music catalogs are no longer just about streaming royalties. Immersive formats are reshaping how IP can generate long-term value.”In 2025, Virtu Global worked on deals involving more than 1,000 music catalogs with combined asset values in excess of $12.5 billion, Rea says. This included providing forecasting and valuation services for asset-backed securities, helping new and existing catalog fund buyers to raise capital and providing support to buyers and sellers of “multiple large music portfolios,” Rea says. As the firm sees competition for music rights drive previously passive collectors to become active managers, Rea says this opens up opportunities. “Active management can take many forms, including new copyright creation based on existing catalog rights, active synchronization strategies, non-music forms of entertainment — like biopics and experiential entertainment — and advanced royalty data analytics, enabling managers to identify royalty trends and opportunities.”Rea: “Our partners range in age. First albums span from Roy’s vinyl of the White Album by The Beatles to Brit’s digital download of
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