Business and financial management platform HIFI has been acquired by TIDAL parent Block, the tech company led by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
HIFI launched in the US in 2020 with major league supporters including Matt Pincus, who joined HIFI’s board and became an investor in the firm via his financial vehicle MUSIC – a joint venture with LionTree.
Founded by Damian Manning (CEO), HIFI dubs itself a “financial rights organization” and has previously claimed to be “building innovative products and services that work in concert with them to financially empower the creator class”.
The Block acquisition arrives just a year and a half after HIFI completed a strategic funding round with a heavyweight list of backers, including artists, executives, artist managers, and other prominent investors.
Amongst those who participated in that eight-figure funding round were Capitol Music Group Chair and CEO Michelle Jubelirer, Red Light Management founder Coran Capshaw, Patriot Management founder Ron Laffitte, Maverick’s Gee Roberson, Wasserman Music’s Tom Windish, artist manager Brandon Creed, Hipgnosis’ Nick Jarjour, 300’s Rob Stevenson, TMWRK’s Andrew McInnes, and Mick Management’s Jonathan Eshak and Michael McDonald.
Other investors in the round included Taz Taylor and Nick Mira of Internet Money, Diplo, 3LAU, G-Eazy, A-Trak, Hayden James, and the legendary Quincy Jones.
HIFI has previously claimed that “thousands of independent creators” including recording artists, producers and songwriters, and their teams had signed up to use its Royalties Dashboard product, a financial platform that aggregates data from labels, distribution services, PROs, music publishers and others.
The company said that it launched support for artists signed to major labels and publishers in 2021, and released an Enterprise version of its dashboard built in partnership with “more than a dozen top business management firms”.
In September 2021, HIFI acquired Warner Music Group and Techstars Music-backed start-up, The Music Fund, which provided funding solutions for artists based on the streaming performance of their music on digital services like Spotify and Apple Music.
Earlier this year, HIFI launched ‘Cash Flow’, described by Manning as “a royalty acceleration service that pays artists and rights holders in real time”.
“I could not be more excited to share that as of today, HIFI is joining Block, furthering our shared purpose of economic empowerment.”
Damian Manning, HIFI
Writing in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday (October 11), HIFI Founder and CEO Damian Manning, said: “I could not be more excited to share that as of today, HIFI is joining Block, furthering our shared purpose of economic empowerment.
“We’re grateful to our investors, partners and members for helping us achieve this remarkable milestone. We are thrilled for our future together.”
In a statement issued on HIFI’s website this week, the company says that it “was founded by a team with a shared passion for music and a deep respect for the artists who create it” and that “with the support of top investors and music creators, we’ve worked to provide innovative financial products, empowering artists and their teams across the industry to achieve financial transparency and independence”.
The statement added: “We’re thrilled to announce that as of today, HIFI is joining Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.) to further our shared purpose of economic empowerment with the financial technologies and services we have built to help artists thrive.
“Block has long worked to create economic access across its ecosystems, and through its TIDAL business, is focused on serving artists at every stage in their career. We could not think of a better path for HIFI and our vibrant community going forward, and promise to be in touch when we have more to share.”
Besides TIDAL, and now HIFI, Block also owns Cash App, a person-to-person payments app, the buy-now-pay-later platform Afterpay and web hosting service Weebly.Music Business Worldwide
