Los Angeles-headquartered music distribution and payments platform Stem has launched a new financial services platform under the ‘Tone’ brand.
Stem says that Tone aims to “fix the broken financial processes” across the music industry.
The launch comes two months after securing a $250 million credit facility from Chicago-headquartered Victory Park Capital, Last year, Stem raised $20 million in a funding round led by QED Investors, a venture capitalist firm in the fintech space.
While Stem offers curated distribution services for independent artists and labels, Tone will develop a suite of financial tools tailored to the music industry.
Tone will be under the ownership of Stem Disintermedia, led by Milana Lewis as CEO. Former Chief Product Officer Brendan Kao will become President of Tone, while Kristin Graziani remains President of Stem Distribution.
Tone’s team of royalties ‘experts’ is led by Tracey Melnick.
“Stem is a music company powered by software built by musicians for musicians, and we’ve learned over the past eight years how impactful it is to pay artists and their collaborators in a clear and timely manner. While other labels and distributors aspire to deliver that experience, they struggle to,” said Lewis.
“Tone allows us to build solutions for the entire industry, working with other distributors and labels to deliver financial clarity to everyone getting paid from music.”
Milana Lewis, Stem
Added Lewis: “Tone allows us to build solutions for the entire industry, working with other distributors and labels to deliver financial clarity to everyone getting paid from music.”
“More visibility should be the expectation and the standard. It’s great that Tone is providing that,” said Shai Goodman, Manager at YMU and Blume Records, an early user of Tone’s royalty platform.
Among Tone’s early adopters are artist-run labels such as A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold Records and 3LAU’s Blume Records.
“As we look towards the future of our company, streamlined royalties will allow us to scale and free up one of the less enjoyable aspects of our jobs,” said Nathaniel Heller, a label manager at Fool’s Gold Records.
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