You’ve probably heard of label services companies. And you’ve probably heard of artist services companies.
But have you ever heard of a ‘management services’ company?
Robb McDaniels, Founder and ex-CEO of INgrooves Music Group, has taken the wraps off his new venture, Los Angeles-based Faction Entertainment, which he calls a “technology-driven management services company”.
Services offered by Faction to its clients digital marketing and social media, tour marketing, business operations, accounting, HR and what it calls ‘a groundbreaking idea incubator to help managers and artists develop and commercialize new brands and products’.
“Faction provides managers with a suite of tools, services and partners. The fact our managers will also own a substantial equity stake is the icing on the cake.”
Robb McDaniels, Faction
In addition, Faction says that it is developing ‘a proprietary communication and information exchange’ – a platform on which a manager will be able to invite key business partners like labels, publishers, business managers, attorneys, tour managers, booking agents and publicists to privately share information.
One of the major objectives of the company, according to McDaniels, is to help on-the-up managers reach the next level of scale without having to give away a chunk of their company to a bigger player in the market.
In fact, Faction is giving chunks of its own business away to management companies who sign up as partners, who all take slices of ‘a large equity pool designed just for them’.
Faction makes its money by, in turn, taking a share of commissions for the services it provides.
Faction launches with six founding management partners in place, led by Kevin Zinger and Ivory Daniel from Regime Management (Everlast, Dilated Peoples, Madchild, Common Kings).
Joining them as launch Management Partners are Kino Childrey (The Initiative Group), Paul Stepanek (Paul Stepanek Management), Marc Friedenberg (MJF Management), Brian Ross (Elliptic Artist Management) and Anna Axster (Axster Bingham Co.).
Faction has raised its initial capital from a group of angel investors, including various music industry executives, Manatt Venture Fund and TechInvest, an offshore technology focused investment company with representative offices in Dubai and San Francisco.
A Faction press release claims: “Faction is the first truly scalable management services company and will deliver a combination of proprietary technology, centralized infrastructure and services and collaborative culture that is sorely missing in the music and entertainment industries.
“Every manager at Faction will also participate in a large equity pool designated just for them, further aligning the collective interests of all involved.”
“Faction is the first business model we’ve seen that combines tech, services and ownership to create a platform that can actually make a difference.”
Ivory Daniel, Regime Management
Commented Robb McDaniels: “Artist managers, and talent managers more broadly, are the CEOs for their creative clients but have been lacking the tools and collaborative culture to operate effectively.
“Faction is the first management company to provide managers with a suite of technology tools, services and partners to help them operate their businesses more efficiently and transparently, and all for a fraction of the cost of doing it on their own or joining a larger management company and giving away up to 50% of their income.
“The fact that our management partners will also own a substantial equity stake in Faction is just icing on the cake.”
“I know so many managers who have been feeling like there had to be a better way to build a more collaborative, forward-thinking management company that could help all of us evolve with the new realities of today’s music business,” commented Kevin Zinger.
“Faction is the first business model we have seen that combines technology, services and ownership together to create a culture and platform that can actually make a difference in our daily lives,” added Ivory Daniel.
“Robb disrupted music distribution when he launched INgrooves in 2002 and put every independent label and artist on a level playing field with the largest label in the world,” commented Kino Childrey.
“When I heard that Robb was tackling the archaic world of artist management I knew I had to join the show and see what was possible – there are simply no limits to what we can do together.”
Faction says that it has an expanding list of preferred partner commercial arrangements with tech and music companies, including: atVenu, CO5 Music, Songspace, KillLynx, Spin Move Network, DistroKid and Westlake Recording Studios.
Robb McDaniels established INgrooves in 2002 as a digitally-focused global music distributor.
Under his leadership, INgrooves grew to digitally distribute all of the music in North American from Universal Music Group beginning in 2010, the company acquired Fontana Distribution and developed a global artist services division in 2012.Music Business Worldwide
