Music Tech Funding Is Broken – Who Might Fix It?

Appreciate it. Thank you for the people that came. Well, so today we're going to do something special and I'm going to allow myself to be a bit more controversial than usual. And this will be sort of streamed afterwards. So that's the beauty of it. The special guest today was someone who didn't know that they were going to join before this morning because I wanted to make something very impromptu on purpose. So my business partner Taj, welcome to the stage. You will be talking about this about me. Maybe we can get a microphone for Taj as well. So Taj, the reason why you're here is because you have no particular love of music, and that's why you're here. Yeah, I practically know nothing about music. I'll be very honest. I'm not neither formally educated nor am I an artist or no I have worked in any label or anything. So that might seem like, OK, that's a pretty random thing. But Taj has a very, very deep background in startups and tech. And we work together with Amplitude Ventures, which is a venture studio that helps startups. And we have a heavy focus on music tech as well. But on the parallel, even though I come from the music industry, I am definitely a skeptic of sorts. I have spent probably 14 years in music and music industry. I've done a lot of work there, both academically and practically.

Today we're going to talk about the state of music tech financing. And I'll call it our neutral commentary on what that means. I think it might turn out to be fairly negative. But I think it's more important to have an honest conversation than someone that's not honest. So Taj, we're going to have a dynamic today where you're sort of going to co-commentary with me and ask some questions. We talk about this professionally a lot. But maybe to start with, could you tell about your very brief experience with music tech and music tech financing? Like what's your overall sense of what's going on here? Okay, so I think so because I have no music background, so I have to just first give a context who am I and where I'm coming from because then it will be easy for you to understand what perspective I'm talking about. I'm formally educated in journalism, mass communications and films. I used to direct TV commercials and then I moved to technology. A long time I worked there and we used to develop content for the global brands. Commercially very high scale and then I had multiple startups of different types and kinds across the sector from real estate to FNB to everything and my businesses later on had nothing to do with my education because I was only focused on one thing that how to make more money and then things happen life happened and I ended up in Norway and I was new and then there was one of the events by a music company going on and I just went there to volunteer as a ticketing guy. And then the ticket manager introduced that you should meet somebody called Jacob. And he's interesting. I said, yeah, Jacob, listen to background. And then he said, OK, let's meet tomorrow for like 15 minutes coffee. And then that coffee is not finished. It's been three years. So this is my background. Now coming specific to music tech financing, I have a very clear view that, for example, that

Any business that you try to do has to at least work at grade 8 maths. This one goes in, this one goes out, this is a profit, this is a loss. I mean, I'm a very firm believer on that. Obviously there are hybrid models that you bring in capital and then you will make a loss for a long period of time, will acquire market and then you go for... That's a different framework. I'm not against it, this is also a good framework. But at the very base fundamental level, the grade 8 maths has to work. And what is unfortunate part, what I have seen in the cases that we come across, neither the grade eight match work nor the Silicon Valley formula works. But you say, and if you try to statistically challenge and if you ask questions, you said, okay, plot the number. I mean, I believe so. I mean, I cannot put my money just because you believe so. Either put a number or put a strong thesis. And the thesis that you're putting is also sometimes just repetitive, the same thesis. And it concludes. But the industry believes so. I'm not taking industry's money, it's my own money. So I'm going to do the basic numbers. So this is where I'm coming from. Yeah, I think that's very important and we have a quite interesting dynamic because I appreciate music, you don't appreciate music, but what we have in common is we believe that things must be viable. And to be totally honest, when I went into music tech, music tech in particular, six years ago, I've been an entrepreneur in music before, but music tech, I had a very different assumption about the health of the investment landscape. For context, I've also done a two-year post-graded masters the last two years besides full-time work with Amplitude. Basically, doing music tech financing research. And I've made a lot of findings there that I think is really interesting. But I have claims I can substantiate with data. And then I have claims I can't substantiate. And I'll talk a lot more about what I can't substantiate today because this is something as of nature.

Is really difficult to substantiate. I'm not going to claim that I'm going to have be completely right in all my statements, but I think I am fairly right. First of all, I believe that investment in music tech from music tech investors is just a front. I don't believe that there is a scalable, repeatable investment thesis from angels or VCs in the market as of today in Europe and maybe also US. And we can talk about why I say this, but this is my claim. Maybe you can ask me some questions about that because I do have a lot of reasoning behind it.

If you're saying that the whole industry doesn't have money, that's a very challenging position to defend. Scalable, yes, I can agree for a point or two because you cannot name 10. I cannot at least name $10 billion sort of from music. But in any other industry, I can name. So high level, if it's not a billion dollar, then it's not a big money. So that I agree with you. I do not agree with, I'm not sure I do not agree, I want to know more that why do you believe so? Okay, so let's do the basics. So let's start with the music tech angels that people are raving about. These sort of investors that have exited a company and invested in music tech companies. I would say I know pretty much all of the people that are in that space. And these guys, as much as I respect them, invest maybe four to five companies. And that's it. Which means we're probably talking about 10, 15 people investing 45 companies in a good deal of years. Most of them jump on the same cases. So we basically just quick math, the angel network music tech in Europe most likely don't invest in more than 25 cases in total. There's thousands of music tech companies and that also the angel ticket sizes. So the investment sizes are very low. So what does that mean? So again, this is the base premise. I also have a lot of research on it, but it's still a lot of claims. My claim is there's very few angels that has a particularly interesting music. The investments are fairly small and the amount of tickets, the amount of investments are very limited and they often co-invest. So the cases are very few. That's the base assumption I'm working from. I have several layers to that. Does that make sense?

Yeah, from one perspective, makes sense. Small ticket size, A, agree, B, very limited investments. That also pushes the case. But the bigger question is that does the angel or the industry does not even want to put the money and does not trust because you try to talk to them in private. They have investment in avocado. They have investment in fishing. Very privately tell us. And then you have labeled as music and then allied industry investment, but you go and check the portfolio. So they're confident in avocado, they're confident in fishing, they're confident in cottage houses, but not on the own industry in which they are claiming to be the lead industry. I'm not against anybody, but just go and check this portfolio. And that's the truth. So one of the things, okay, I'm assuming that's the truth. This is our claim, my claim. There's still companies that get investment, but usually the concept of validation capital, so angels who come with domain expertise, goes investing companies, and other type of investors outside of the music industry do invest. The problem with that is, is if there is not a repeatable model for outside investors to bring to. They're so dependent on that validation capital. They're so dependent on a credible investor coming and putting some money in. Might not be a lot and saying, I believe in this from an industry angle. That's not very repeatable scalable because there's so few of those, which means when you get to having investment at scale across many startups, across many industries, you basically need to get investment. In spite of investors not being able to understand how to invest in this space.

I mean, agree the boundary correlation I can tell like that. I'm from India and Bangalore is probably the top 10 in the global investment, like global startup rankings. And in fact, there are in the top 25, there will be at least three to four Indian cities. And we have not seen this trend in India. India is the home to, I think, the top five biggest startups in the world, heavily capitalized. And then you have Europe. So like, that's where even I doubt a lot in that case that why is it that investment is not going and I've not seen honestly the big real VCs money getting poured in because they have like and my reason and I think though that they would have done the match high level match otherwise why would why would not the American funds come here and put like deep money and they're to put in a small tech finance tech finance health tech. They're ready today, but why not music? Can you answer that? Well, first of all, I don't think there's data. I don't think there's repeatable data on what is successful. What can you expect from exits? What are the expected valuations? What type of problems do you see in acquisitions like being acquired? All this data is non-existent like I've been working on creating some of the qualitative research on it. But through my academic studies, I have not been able to find any academic claims, statistical claims about what gets acquired. There's a few exceptions like Warner Music, which I think are doing a really good job. My claim is that's very inadequate data. They also themselves state that this is US-based data, which means practically there is no EU data that's credible. So everyone needs to take a leap of faith.

Because there is nothing to substantiate is this a good investment or not. And if you're professional investor, that's simply just not how you operate. You need to have something to base your thesis in. And if that bedrock does not exist, I perfectly understand why you wouldn't invest in music tech. Like we're in a position now where we're started, we've had a break from investing, we're investing again. We're super reluctant. Investing in music tech just because we have created our own thesis that we're trying to prove. But I'm not gonna invest before I believe I have a data points to substantiate our thesis. We have owners we have investors of our own that we need to answer to. So are we gonna go? Dive headfirst in the industry where the only thing I have is I believe that this is a good investment or can I say? According to the track record according to data according to having a clear understanding of exit opportunities, this is a statistically good investment. OK, makes sense. Then I have a question. So if data is the backbone of all argument, then why do we don't have a data? Is it academic problem that we do not have enough academician in this space studying it formally and claiming it up? Is it that because there's not enough money and then nobody is commissioning a study by Deloitte, KPMG, and the big ones, Goldman Sachs? Is it that problem, or is it that the data in itself is controlled by certain few players top in the market and then they will only give if it benefits them and they will refuse their own annual report in their own world and then there are three problems why I cannot say the data cannot happen. What do you think?

I think there's many reasons and I'll cover a few of my theories around it. First of all, what I believe to be one of the biggest issues is the perception of investors in this space. I would say, I've been running the numbers, that the VC investors in this space in general rarely invest more than five to seven hundred thousand per year, per VC, in music tech in Europe. Which means if you count all the VCs together, I'm seriously gonna doubt that they're deploying more than three million a year in music tech, in your obvious, of the recognized VCs together. So, but there's an illusion of that not being so, but these are privatized companies. So they have no obligation of acknowledging this or even it's claiming this. So there was an illusion of investments happening in this space. I do not see any evidence. In Europe.

To that superseding three million euros per year from what we would call well-known VCs in music tech group. So that's one thing. It's a big claim. It's a big claim. I understand. The second thing is there's very little capacity from interest groups to do such work. Like, I love the music tech group initiative. And this is something that's been going on for a few years. It takes a lot of time to get enough capital support, soft funding, European support to go and do fundamental research. But if you pair that with also the lack of maybe domain-specific pursuit in academics, you have this catch-22. Because you might get money to do research, but if no one is deeply ingrained in the academic pursuit of that truth, it's going to be really difficult to also land what you're looking for. It requires a certain persona being in the industry, having multifaceted motivation of getting these numbers. And that doesn't exist at scale. So very few people would have that cross-section of interest. There's multiple things, but maybe that's two points I can begin with. And they're complicated to get to a line. Okay, interesting. So I'm very interested in the academic aspect because I said if you do it purely academically, then the results will completely be not aligned what industry is actually happening. And then you need the people who are both into industry in and then now becoming academic. And in other industries, we have seen it offered like you see, you see, you see people working in Big Tech, Google, Microsoft, and then they go and teach in Harvard and Oxford. That's there. That's course interaction. In fact, when Steve Jobs used to get stuck, he used to go back to these professors for this thing. Do we have similar stuff in music?

We rarely see it. I believe that there are very few professors in the space that has hands, hands on experience. The best person that I can point to is Daniel Norgard, which I believe is basically probably the most brilliant mind in music, full stop, in my opinion. But his focus is very much focused on music tech in the educational space. Obviously, as a researcher, you need some sort of specific focus. So even the people who are financed to do music technology research have a particular intersection that doesn't necessarily fully align with what we're talking about, which is investor capital. I don't know, as far as I see it, and all the studies I've done, all the work that I've done, I have not seen activities in music tech financing and academia. Have not. And why are we talking so much about academia? Like we were doing the Music Tech Accelerator and I think at one point people got a bit tired. I was talking about academia. But if you want to be very basic about anything like open AI, where does that come from? Academia where does anything? Did come from? It's a classroom project. So I mean, it is not that like we have the new one who has been to the college and now claiming to be, didn't study music. But we are realizing the fundamental problem that you need a fundamental research in place, fundamental data points in the place in which somebody has spent three years, five years to do that stuff, at least many of them. So it's not the academic push via this conference. It's just the whole idea is. Do we have that? If not, that is a time to recognize or not. But coming back to your stuff, that investment in the music tech space, which areas do you think are really promising within the music tech space?

I think no place is really promising. Believe where I can see repeatable, realistic wins is B2B niche, which basically means something that's having a company that serves other companies in a very particular pain point that is often infrastructure related or something that's very protective. So that's what I see. That's sort of the general categorization that I see. Can deep dive a bit more. I have a good deal of data points. Point two, I also have a good deal of other research that say the same. But we're still working on really proving that through data, which we're sort of working on. I think this is a common thesis in which at Amplitude also we believe that the industry is going to remain what it is and we're not here to change it. Please perform the way you're doing. We're not here for revolution. Whatever is working within that part, if there is a very specific problem with a very precise use case, just go there, find that use case and everybody's tired of that use case that they have to do with. And then you just go invest it out there, small amount, let it grow and let it naturally... take its own form. That's it. And the solution usually that I agree with Jacob that B2B is the solution because both the parties are that willing to pay. Anything that goes to B2C in space, what do have to say on that? The problem with B2C right now is you competing for attention on equal level with most other tech companies. And there's basically two assumptions I also work for from. And that is exit amounts of music tech tend to be significantly lower to competitive industries. And also the financing of these companies are much lower. Which means when it comes to customer acquisition through marketing, through user growth, B2C.

The capital is not available to do a good job at scale. And if you over capitalize your company, no one's going to earn from you selling a company at the end. So it's not a financially feasible model to compete for user attention in BTC. Generally speaking, I understand that, you know, user behavior is different. I understand all these kinds of stuff. But the generalistic statements of that still counts that the competition for attention in this day and age is expensive. And I don't see that music tech can compete at that level. Mm-hmm.

Okay, so then it's a consumer problem then. Customer doesn't want to pay. I don't know. I just say it's a consumer conversion issue because you don't have enough capital to get to the scale you need in order to make a viable business. Just let's get back to very basic. Anything goes to become big because at the end of consumer is paying. You're drinking water, water sells more because consumers willing to pay for the water. And then you can pick up from there and keep on building and then you can take a decision how big is the water industry in Europe. So my problem is everybody's consuming music. Yeah. So we've had many talks about this. And you made a statement. It's not necessarily unique, but I keep getting back to it, is that music sells anything but music. And we had a talk. We were at Slosh Music, sitting with one of my friends, who's an absolutely fabulous producer, and you were basically sitting at the cafe and say, music sells anything but music. And he's like, what do you mean? Like, we're sitting here, right? We're drinking a coffee, eating a toast, enjoying each other company, all of this costs money. Are you paying for the music up there? It's like, no, but the restaurant is playing for the music. Sure. Are you paying for the music? And this is a symbolism for the end user rarely, if ever, pays for music. And that is the basic metrics of any B2C is that there's a willingness and repeated purchase of the product.

Mm. The value of music has been diluted so much for many different reasons, technology, movement policy, whatever, that I believe that it is deeply undervalued in the eyes of music. I'm not talking about fairness, I'm just talking about facts. People consume music all the time, rarely pay for it, and what they pay for it is very low. I mean, that brings to me another Lehman argument that I put, said, music is the only industry, probably, in the world where the product is free. I mean, you go in a, you make a car, everything in the car has gone. You set up trees, even the soil costs money. This is the only industry where product comes for free, especially after generative AI, even the more. So. Practically when the base product is free and you can also claim that social media is also free. That is a very equal argument. But point is in social media. They ask you to download that and stick to that app. You can't consume driving a car. You can't consume it driving in a cafe. They said okay wherever you are, but you have to open an app play it. So the argument whole fails that in social media you do the same stuff. But then your time is a product and your attention is a product. It is only in the music where the product is free. If the product is free then everybody is just now trying to make money in different form right or wrong, or bad, a commission on it. Okay, you distribute it, I'll make money there. So, bass product remains free.

So yesterday, Hannah from Media Research had a really interesting slide. And she said that for professional musicians, 13 % of their income is associated to streaming. Like that says a lot, right? That the main product they're creating, 13%, is their income. That's a pretty insane figure. And when you say free, obviously you don't mean free, but practically free. And so going back to music tech financing, there's just so many layers of nuance around it. Psychological association. That is this worth my time for outside investors? And it's just... All comes back to that even the industry domain experts who are so-called music tech investors does not invest enough capital or enough tickets to say really in my book that they're music tech investors. So why would outside investors at scale automatically feel that this is attractive? It's a catch-22. We can't get financing in music tech at scale because even the people who are investing in music tech don't have a lot of money and they don't invest a lot. Okay, let me ask you in that direction, you're going it that way. How many big exits have happened in past three years, you know, and what was the valuation size?

Okay, so according to global figures that are current, it's probably around 150 acquisitions globally. It's really hard to actually trust that number. I believe there's more. So this might seem very contrary to my statement, but it actually isn't. If you look at the data that is out there, which I believe is not very correct, these have very high valuations, probably like... 30, 40 million in average. Statements from VCs that I trust a lot, which come from music, does not invest in music, but have raised hundreds of millions and exited for equally the same, claim that the 75 % of the investment amount is under 50 million US dollars. Okay, 75, okay, so you're putting 75 % of the exits are under 50 million. Hmm, this number is comparably very poor to exits in other industries that proves another the point like okay if business is a matrix then exit is a decision and exits the final point. It's incredibly poor.

Because you need to remember that if investment happened to work in the way that you invest in one company and then that happens to exit, that could be a good thing. But you need to invest across multiple companies, across multiple amounts of money. And then what's the opportunity cost? So if investors are like, OK, if I can only exit for this much, the risk is high. There's really no capital from the industry. And my potential is only exiting for this amount. That makes no sense compared to other investments I can do. So that's the thing. Yeah, might be, know, officially the numbers is 150 acquisitions the last three years. I would probably argue it's closer to 300. And even though, yeah, that sounds like a sure. But how many of those are acqui-hires? How many of those are actually exits of three to four million, which I know that a lot of them in, even the famous ones in Europe. So let's get it out there. Three to four million euros. And yes, that sounds like great. Well, if they have raised three million capital and you sell it for four million, that's not very good. And then, you know, if founders have contributed as well, like with time and energy, have not taken out salaries, you might argue that the spending of the company is much more than what we got sold for. That does not constitute a good acquisition. And actually, you know, it's actually, if you were to count those data points, it would be hurtful. If anything, it proves the opposite, that you can exit here. It's even more painful to hear if a... I don't know, I don't have a numbers but if the general assumption is that somebody raised X amount of money and after slogging four years, five years or whatever, they sold it just double what they raised then it forms a very poor case because then somebody did not withdraw salary, somebody was just simply living the dream for at the end of the day it was just okay, it's crashing so I just need to move on.

Yeah, depending on the deal investors have, might have lost a lot of money, even though they sold. So if the deals haven't been very strict with who gets money first, then investors might have put in a couple million and they might end up 30 % and end up getting less. But obviously some contracts are protecting that, then the founder doesn't get any money. So that's not attractive either. The music never got a money, now the fund didn't got any money. So then who made the money? That's very dire and easy. So what am I actually trying to say? I'm not just shit talking. I'm actually trying to figure out what is the point. The point is I do not believe that there currently is many, if any, investors in this space that have a clear thesis, that understand what their value is, that have data points to support it, that can make successful investments, then do successful exits, and prove to the thesis being correct. Okay. So unless that whole value chain can happen, you cannot go to others and say music tech is a good investment as an industry.

Yeah, because first somebody has to prove insight from inside. Then others will pull in money and time, effort, energy. But first you need to have data. Then you need to say, this is what we see in the data. Then you need to vest according to your belief and then prove that belief. And only then do you have an attractive case. And preferably that should be repeated three or four times. So if you just prove something once, that could be an outlier. And I can claim this for sure this does not happen. Because if that had happened, someone would have put out the numbers. It is to no one's benefit, including the investors, not saying, we had a thesis, we were successful, here's all the numbers. This would mean that this investor would raise another fund. Mm-hmm. Where are those numbers?

Okay, that's even more difficult. Okay, so another thing I just want to ask the buzzword, music industry is very complex. And if you're putting it that way, that's the first lesson or first thing you're told in the room. So if you're saying your industry is complex, how do you expect somebody from outside to get into your mess and understand this? Because the banking world is, for example, very simple. This goes in, this goes out. Healthcare world is very simple. Obviously there's some complexity, but they don't claim that our industry is complex. What do you think is a very good proposition to put forward? And especially music, tech financing, if you want to raise the money. I think the music industry is confusing, not necessarily complex. I think that many industry professionals are very lazy with their research, and they default to emotions and statements, and that is socially accepted. I believe the music industry is confusing. I don't believe the notion that the music industry is complex compared to other industries. So at the end of the day, it's personal statement and emotional pitches that when not the real numbers. Yeah, again, if the industry who's supposed to do due diligence are happy with having most of their knowledge grounded in subjective emotional interpretations.

You. Okay, let's head towards the solution. You think there is practically any solution? Or at least, okay, if you're not you, but do you think there are things that some other places, somebody's doing that you think these are things to look forward to in music tech financing? Honestly speaking, believe the only player right now, there's only two players right now that I believe are doing a positive impact on music tech financing. I don't know everything, I definitely don't know the East, so Asia. So I know Europe very well, and I have a fairly good sense of US. There's only two entities that I believe is doing a really good work. One is SoundInvest in Denmark. An audio VC company why they're doing it because audio and then Mike has been widely successful. They have a very clear thesis. They know what they invest in and they're very outspoken. Only VC in Europe that I subscribe to when it comes to having a thesis. They're trying to. Sorry to say only second is music tech Europe because they're the ones insisting on having research and data on topics that are now just subjective. Other than that, I see nothing.

So I'll talk about music tech Europe then. Because then most of the European countries have the tech which is there, are affiliated practically to that. So what specific steps do you think they are taking or they should take or how other regional countries or regional associations can help them to get better? I think it's a really difficult answer because the easy answer would be that we would come together and create data on what's happening, who gets financing, who's exited. But it's much more complex than that. Like I have friends in music tech that have exited companies that are not public, have made insane amounts of money, and they have so strong NDAs that they would... go to prison if they said anything. It's not that bad, but it's really bad. So even a lot of the data points are just hidden by incredible NDAs. A lot of the motivation for people to go out of their way to contribute to something that's very untangible about creating a European data set is also very hard motivation, especially if they want to break NDAs or they want to. be anonymized data, or even knowing that these exist. A couple of my friends have also sold companies, and there's been no peer announcement. There's been no LinkedIn posts. They're just like, that happened. How would you know at scale how to navigate that? How do you gather data? So I'm not trying to be skeptical to my own suggested solution. I'm just saying even that is very difficult. But I believe gathering data on a regional basis, on an international basis, about music, tech, financing, funding, acquisition, valuation, multiples, actual deal structures, acquihires versus capital acquisitions is key to having any informed data to do any thesis on.

Okay, so there's the last one and then you can close it if you want because I think so. Too much of ranting happened today. Okay, what are the, what I can say, what are the three music tech companies you think that really believe in them that I don't know, you do not know what will happen to the future, but you say, yes, this is something that will, or at least areas where this will work. I believe I have a few companies and I can I have limited knowledge because I'm not an investor in those companies I haven't done deep due diligence, but I've done my homework to the extent that I can. So one company that I really believe in is beat DAP out of the US Morgan and Andrew they're basically a fraud detection company in music rights. They've partnered with tune global for example, which is the biggest independent white label solution for streaming services. And they have found, research by the way, that more than, they claim that 10 % of all streams in the world is fraudulent. billions is fraudulent. And I believe they can be the first unicorn in the music industry, tech unicorn in a while. So beat that. I deeply believe in copyright delta. Dan Archer, I believe that is probably the most brilliant founder I know in music tech. Done.

They've had a hard time raising capital, have a hard time really getting momentum, but that's because they're fundamentally changing things. So if they succeed and they basically work with attribution of rights with AI, incredible team. I believe in that. They're both heavy B2B niche, by the way. And the third company. I'll stick to those two because I have a few more but these guys I'm very optimistic about. Yeah. OK, so there is always a hope, is a word on which we all play. So let's hope things get better. And as of now, it's not that bad. I don't think that's bad because change doesn't come in one day. It takes time somebody to come up and say, you know what, this is not working, or this needs to be improved. And I think so, though, if you have a platform like ValaForenia where you sit down and you can freely say this, I think so that the very fact that somebody is providing a platform to say this is a recognition of the fact that something needs to be done. And it's a long journey. Yeah, I don't think they knew that I was going to say this though. But yes, I do recognize it. Yeah, it's a surprise. Again, I always default to negative. I'm sorry. But I believe that if there's not someone outward-spokenly claimed that there's smoke and mirrors and complete lacking of a thesis, that's going to go really slow.

So I've made it my personal mission and all my arrogance to shout this from the rooftops and be wildly unpopular the next couple of years and then might fall on my face and totally fail. But I believe people are not speaking about this and I believe if no one is speaking about this, it will take 10, 15 years. If I speak about this loudly, I must say now I have one of the largest podcasts in the world. Hopefully some few people will join me in a while. I feel a bit alone right now. And then hopefully it will go not 15 years. This is my hope. I was hopeful. I have nothing to lose. I don't come from this industry. I really enjoy the people and we try to find some money. If we make something really good, that's good. But we are really, really hard. So, I'm not pessimist. I'll just put a grade 8 maths and what is successful in other industries and question you. The day I found a case that works for me, I'll invest. And that's how we operate. So, thank you so much for being the lovely audience and thank you so much. I'm so thankful to you the way you have put it and thank you, California, for having us here and thank you. And trust me, it was a surprise. I was walking and setting up chairs and he said, you are the surprise guest. So, thank you so much. Thanks a lot, everyone. Thank you guys. Thank you. Bye. Can I have this? Yeah, this microphone's on brilliant. Wow, so many facts. I've been scribbling down all of these things and lots of claims there, right? Does anyone have any questions about any of those claims? I hope you were scribbling them down.

Yeah. So you said that you believe more in B2B startups in music. Do you consider small artists as more B2C or B2B2 in the veneer? You know, and the small artist is going to be a professional at one moment or even medium or top artist. Are they consumers or are they part of the business? When you say, can you give me a specific example? I mean, there's a lot of music amateurs that turn into a musician amateur. With the COVID, everybody starts to make bread or to make a guitar. And we believe with Tempo Studio, which I'm working for, that we have a lot of small amateurs of music that turn to musicians. So for me, are not yet professional, but it's for me B2B also. We have a lot of numbers of figures of Again, this

And smaller artists. So this is my opinion, but I don't believe Autist is a viable customer when it comes to scale. And the reason is, again, this is my own personal opinion. When you want to build a business, you want to have customers that are willing to pay repeatedly. And maybe not so in your case, but in most cases, Autist are not the most strong with capital and don't have a lot of wiggle room in their liquidity. And it's also a very limited amount of numbers that would define that segment. Usually if you do something B2C, so in this case I would call Outsist, especially if your Outsist is your customer, I would call that B2C still, even though they might have legal entities. They fall more in the B2C category. There's just not enough scale of being willingness to create good models. There exists good companies with that model. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm just saying it's an uphill battle the way that I see it. Like, so basically you're saying hobbyist, basically. People who do not have like formally studied or did this, and now they're hobbyist. So. Small leisure. Yeah, like leisure. So I mean, the leisure is leisure. Unless you try a completely new.

So I believe any startup needs to be really good at one thing. So if education is a part of your startup, besides selling a product, it also gets really complicated. You know, whenever a startup has two layers of activities, it just really becomes difficult. I believe the best startups, if they disrupt anything, I don't like that word, but if they, let's see, change things, they should change one thing. And then, leave everything else as is. Exactly. So then you can go into music education. That is an industry and education within music. That's fantastic. And then you operate within that framework. And then you can make it a lot. But you say, no, I will educate you, then I will give you gig also, then you will become working artist also. Then there is no layer to it. Because each one of them, it's not bad, but each one of them is a separate industry. It has its own frameworks, its own laws. And then practically when some one person tries to do it, he might succeed, but if you want to build a model, scale, and volume on successful rates capital, then let's ask you, you're doing five different things. Where should I put my money on? Yep. And again, we speak from an investor angle more so than what we believe can do impact.

Thank you, Emmanuel. Anyone else? No. Amazing. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you. Super insightful. Fascinating. Thank you. Thanks, Ella.