Katy Perry, Nas, Jason Derulo invest big in crypto music platform Audius

Singer Katy Perry

Blockchain-based music streaming platform Audius raised $5 million in a strategic round of funding from some of the top names in the music industry.

Artist investors in Audius include Katy Perry, Nas, The Chainsmokers via their Mantis VC, Jason Derulo, Pusha T, Steve Aoki, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, and Disclosure, Decrypt reported.

The platform that claims to have nearly six million monthly active users is a decentralized music streaming application owned and run by an open source community of artists, fans, and developers. It also lets musicians upload their tracks with no costs. Unlike other platforms like Spotify and Souncloud, Audius lets artists own their music. Each song uploaded on the platform has a time stamp record of origin.

Artists have already moved in the crypto industry through investments and even showcasing their Non Fungible Token (NFT) collections. For example, Rapper Nas was one of the early investors in cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase.

“I’ve known that blockchain will change the world since I invested in Coinbase five years ago and I believe it might be the most important technology to ever hit the music industry,” Nas said in the statement. “Everyone who uploads to Audius can be an owner, you can't say that about any other platform.”

Audius had last raised $3.1 million in July 2020 in a strategic round co-led by Multicoin Capital and Blockchange Ventures, with participation from Pantera Capital, Collab+Currency, and Coinbase Ventures.

Along with the new $5 million investment, the San Francisco-based company has raised $13.6 million till date.