South Korea-based Beyond Music is a serious new player in the global music rights acquisitions space.
The company raised $170 million in June last year and said at the time that the funding round brought its total amount of capital raised to date to nearly $400 million.
Beyond Music also tells us that it has deployed over $200 million on more than 100 catalogs to date.
Those acquisitions have mostly taken place within Asia, notably acquiring KNC Music, FNC Investment, and Interpark’s music catalog, which includes what Beyond Music says are “some of the most iconic songs in Korean music history”.
In December, Seoul-based Beyond Music, which claims to be Asia’s largest single music IP asset management company, branched out into the North American market, acquiring the music catalog of Grammy-winning producer/songwriter Greg Wells.
Wells has produced and written songs with the likes of Adele, Taylor Swift, John Legend, Dua Lipa, Quincy Jones and Katy Perry, among many others.
Today (April 11), we can reveal that the company also has its sights set on the Latin Music market, and has struck a music rights deal with Puerto Rican singer and songwriter Yandel (Llandel Veguilla Malavé).
According to Beyond Music, it has acquired the Latin Grammy Award-winner’s publishing interests and royalties, his share of performance royalties and neighboring rights royalties for an undisclosed sum.
Beyond Music CEO Jangwon Lee told us that the company has “multiple deals in our Latin (and of course, global non-Anglo) pipeline at various stages but would be more comfortable disclosing them upon closing”.
Beyond Music claims that the Yandel deal “is the first of its kind by an Asian music company” and that it is the first company from Asia to have “acquired [a] Latin popstar’s catalog directly, beside[s] HYBE’s recent acquisition of Latin music label Exile Music in Nov 2023″.
Commenting on why Beyond Music has decided to invest in Latin Music at this time, Jangwon Lee pointed to the Latin Music’s recorded music revenue growth in the US.
“Latin music is growing at an unprecedented pace in the US, hitting all-time high of $1.1 billion in 2022 and a remarkable 15% YoY growth for the first half of 2023, according to the RIAA report,” he said.
He added: “Meanwhile, Latin Pop and K-pop are the two fastest-growing sub-genres that are becoming more distinctive in the global music market. As an avid supporter of non-Anglo music consumption, we would like to accelerate the growth of those sub-genres in our own way.”
Beyond Music was set up in early 2021 by hit songwriter Park Geun-tae plus Jangwon Lee, who founded “Mapiacompany,” which is claimed to be Asia’s largest digital music score platform.
In April 2021, the company completed a financing round worth 65 billion South Korea Won ($51m) from Korean institutional investors including KB Securities, Base Investment, Maven Growth Partners
In December 2021, Beyond Music raised another 200 billion South Korea Won ($160m) of investment from Praxis Capital.
“As a leading custodian of some of the most iconic non-Anglo musical works, we seek to support a truly burgeoning creativity across Latin and Asian musical ecosystems.”
Jangwon Lee, Beyond Music
Beyond Music CEO Jangwon Lee added: “We are deeply humbled by Yandel’s extraordinary artistry and unparalleled career and honored to partner with him as he progresses to the next height of his career.
“As a leading custodian of some of the most iconic non-Anglo musical works, we seek to support a truly burgeoning creativity across Latin and Asian musical ecosystems.
“We see similar traits of magnificent growth in both Latin Pop and Asian Pop (K-Pop included), and hope to share and connect the best from both worlds.”
Beyond Music CEO Jangwon Lee is also CEO of CT Investments and Contents Technologies, which launched the KPOP and Korean Entertainment ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) on the NYSE Arca exchange in September 2022.Music Business Worldwide
