Napster

??Napster Acquired for $207M — A New Era Begins?? Today marks a defining moment in the history of digital music: I am thrilled to announce that Napster has officially been acquired by Infinite Reality for $207 million. Yes — that Napster. The name that sparked a revolution, shifted an entire industry, and forever changed the way the world experiences music. For me, this is more than a deal — it's a full-circle moment. I first invested in Napster 25 years ago at Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, where a small group of us dreamed of launching a paid, legal version of the platform. It was a bold idea, ahead of its time. We never got to launch it and I have always wanted to finish what we started which was one of the main reasons why I decided to leave Roblox where I had the chance to build innovative immersive experiences for artists and brands at scale and take on the CEO role 2 years and a half years ago. At that time, Napster was facing serious challenges — operational, financial, and cultural. But we had an iconic brand, a passionate team and an industry-leading music platform with the same rights as all the big players. This presented us with a unique opportunity to reimagine what the digital music experience could be for fans in the 21st century. We rolled up our sleeves, worked around the clock, and stayed true to a vision that put artists and fans at the center. We created industry firsts in AI with our PlaylistGPT feature and we created the first immersive artist world on a DSP with Ric Wilson. Today, that vision takes a big leap forward. Now, we’re turning up the volume. Joining forces with Infinite Reality marks the start of an exciting new chapter — one where we’ll accelerate innovation and help shape the future of music and entertainment in the new era of the Immersive 3D internet. Infinite Reality’s mission to build immersive digital experiences aligns perfectly with ours: to make music more interactive, social, and shoppable, and to bring artists and fans even closer together. To the entire Napster team Matthew Eccles Pete Wylie, our trusted label partners Dennis Kooker Carletta Higginson Mark Mooradian Jonathan Dworkin Michael Nash, our loyal subscriber community, the amazing team at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and are our supportive board Steven Kokinos Matt Zhang - thank you. Your passion, support and dedication brought us here, and I couldn’t be more grateful. A huge thank you as well to our new partners at Infinite Reality, especially CEO John Acunto and co-founders Amish Shah Sean Cross. Looking forward to building the future together! For our Napster subscribers: your music experience stays the same — but get ready, because there’s so much more to come and if you want to help build the future of music, we are hiring :) We can’t wait to show you what’s next. Stay tuned! CNBC coverage here: https://lnkd.in/eS5UtYxP #Napster #InfiniteReality #Acquisition #MusicInnovation #DigitalEntertainment #TheFutureOfMusic

??Napster Acquired for $207M — A New Era Begins?? Today marks a defining moment in the history of digital music: I am thrilled to announce that Napster has officially been acquired by Infinite Reality for $207 million. Yes — that Napster. The name that sparked a revolution, shifted an entire industry, and forever changed the way the world experiences music. For me, this is more than a deal — it's a full-circle moment. I first invested in Napster 25 years ago at Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, where a small group of us dreamed of launching a paid, legal version of the platform. It was a bold idea, ahead of its time. We never got to launch it and I have always wanted to finish what we started which was one of the main reasons why I decided to leave Roblox where I had the chance to build innovative immersive experiences for artists and brands at scale and take on the CEO role 2 years and a half years ago. At that time, Napster was facing serious challenges — operational, financial, and cultural. But we had an iconic brand, a passionate team and an industry-leading music platform with the same rights as all the big players. This presented us with a unique opportunity to reimagine what the digital music experience could be for fans in the 21st century. We rolled up our sleeves, worked around the clock, and stayed true to a vision that put artists and fans at the center. We created industry firsts in AI with our PlaylistGPT feature and we created the first immersive artist world on a DSP with Ric Wilson. Today, that vision takes a big leap forward. Now, we’re turning up the volume. Joining forces with Infinite Reality marks the start of an exciting new chapter — one where we’ll accelerate innovation and help shape the future of music and entertainment in the new era of the Immersive 3D internet. Infinite Reality’s mission to build immersive digital experiences aligns perfectly with ours: to make music more interactive, social, and shoppable, and to bring artists and fans even closer together. To the entire Napster team Matthew Eccles Pete Wylie, our trusted label partners Dennis Kooker Carletta Higginson Mark Mooradian Jonathan Dworkin Michael Nash, our loyal subscriber community, the amazing team at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and are our supportive board Steven Kokinos Matt Zhang - thank you. Your passion, support and dedication brought us here, and I couldn’t be more grateful. A huge thank you as well to our new partners at Infinite Reality, especially CEO John Acunto and co-founders Amish Shah Sean Cross. Looking forward to building the future together! For our Napster subscribers: your music experience stays the same — but get ready, because there’s so much more to come and if you want to help build the future of music, we are hiring :) We can’t wait to show you what’s next. Stay tuned! CNBC coverage here: https://lnkd.in/eS5UtYxP #Napster #InfiniteReality #Acquisition #MusicInnovation #DigitalEntertainment #TheFutureOfMusic

I can't believe it's already been 3 weeks since Jasper Donat's annual All That Matters conference in Singapore. It was a fantastic week seeing old friends, making new ones and learning about the latest trends. It was my privilege to speak at the event so I wanted to share my interview conducted by the inimitable Rich Robinson, entrepreneur in residence, Animoca Brands, where I talk about where Napster and the broader music industry is headed in 2025. Hope it sparks some ideas, please lmk any feedback. After all the meetings I have had recently with major labels, indies, artists, managers, startups, venues, magazines, brands and web3 companies, it is clear that we are at a fork in the road for the digital music industry or as Lucian, CEO of UMG, calls it the beginning of "Streaming 2.0". The traditional DSP streaming industry is reaching market saturation in developed markets, the all you can eat, single player, one size fits all model is getting tired (note - there will still be material user growth in developing markets over the coming years). Fans and artists are ready for a new model. something fresh, where fans can connect with each other and artists can connect directly with their fans, express themselves in new creative ways and unlock a plethora of new revenue streams that will allow artists to actually earn a living doing what they love. The other key trend for 2025 will be the emergence of the music curator class who have not been given any real stage time to date and have not benefited economically for all the help they have given us discovering the best music to listen to and music friends to connect with. All the parties that help us find out what to listen to on and offline will become more prominent as they start to monetize and connect their communities. We are closing a new funding round at Napster and are gearing up to launch our new product in 2025 that will introduce social features as well as new direct to fan monetization tools and features. It will look very different to the incumbent offerings. Other peers like SoundCloud and new startups like EVEN, Mellomanic, FanCircles, Medallion are going to give it a go as well. A groundswell is growing and it is feeling more and more inevitable. The power and reach of fans and independent artists is going to help us unleash this second phase of digital, finally making music fun again like Napster did back in the day creating the first phase of digital music and bringing more than 90M people onto the Internet. I am excited and supportive of all the great companies that are building for this new era looking to deliver a more exciting, social and valuable proposition to fans, artists and curators. It's time for change! Let's make it happen together... Kevin Brown Mag Rodriguez Matt Jones Andy Apple Ralph Simon FRSA Eliah Seton #napster #musicindustry #superfans #allthatmatters #asia