AUDIUS Music Will Create A Decentralized Blockchain-Based Platform With Funding Of $ 5.5 Million

Based in San Francisco, the music exchange platform, Audius announced on Wednesday that it raised $ 5.5 million in its first round of Series A financing from investors led by US venture capital firms General Catalyst and Lightspeed. Other investors supporting the project were Kleiner Perkins, Pantera Capital, 122West and Ascolta Ventures.

As a decentralized service, Audius intends to end mediators and allow music artists and their audiences to interact freely with each other. This means that musicians can see who transmits their content, and when and where they transmit it.

In other words, Audius hopes to be an alternative to the major platforms, such as Soundcloud and Spotify.

However, the financial aspect remains somewhat unclear. Neither the press release nor the website of the platform does not specify how the exchange of music will be monetized. However, co-founder and CEO Ranidu Lankage told Techcrunch that Audius plans to “use token incentives,” meaning users will pay for music with Audius tokens that are earned when listening to advertisements.

At first Audius will not represent any big names from the music scene, but rather focus on independent musicians.

The Audius service is the joint creation of Lankage, the famous musician of Sri Lanka, civil engineer Kleiner Perkins and software specialist Forrest Browning. The launch date for the platform is still unknown.