Napster buys web3 music startup Mint Songs
Quick Take
- Streaming service Napster is buying Mint Songs as it expands its web3 presence.
- The company said this is the first in a series of acquisitions.
Napster, the streaming service best-known for the peer-to-peer audio file-sharing platform it operated in the early 2000s, is buying music startup Mint Songs.
The company, which was acquired last year by Hivemind and Algorand, is making a play at web3 by using the startup's experience in helping artists build their presence on the blockchain with collectibles.
It will be the first in a series of acquisitions it plans to make to speed up its web3 feature rollout plans, Napster said in a press release Wednesday.
“We are in an unprecedented era of innovation in the digital music space and it feels like there have been more music startups formed in the last two to three years than in the previous 20," Napster CEO Jon Vlassopulos said.
Mint Songs, which developed tech to allow artists to mint songs and offer fans other NFT items, said on Twitter that it was winding down in September last year and would not mint new NFTs on its Mint Songs Factory (Polygon) and Mint Songs V2 (Ethereum).
The company worked with artists like Gramatik, Mark de Clive-Lowe and Black Dave. It had previously raised $4.3 million from investors like Freestyle Capital and Castle Island Ventures.
Napster didn't disclose the value of the acquisition.
© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
