LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) – Longtime Riptide Music Group (a publishing company and record label) CEO Keatly Haldeman exits to launch Dequency, which claims to be “the world’s first Web3 music synchronization licensing marketplace.” The new venture has raised $4.5M in capital led by company Borderless Capital.
Haldeman is co-founder of Dequency and will act as its CEO. The company wants to be a “first-of-its-kind decentralized music licensing marketplace for music and visual creators.” Haldenman, in a statement to MBW said, “the more I’ve learned about the principles of Web3, the clearer it’s become that blockchain technology has the power to revolutionize the market for music licensing and create more opportunities for artists”.
Dequency has revealed that all funding will go toward building its peer-to-peer function in order to allow music creators to upload their work to the platform and directly license for use in visual art projects. The platform is currently in development on the Algorand blockchain.
Algorand is an open source public blockchain based on “a pure proof-of-stake consensus protocol that supports quick, efficient, and secure transactions anywhere in the world,” according to Dequency. Once Dequency officially launches, the firm states that its marketplace will be the “only option” to license music “on-chain for blockchain-native content” such as NFL projects, games and metaverse productions.
Dequency was co-founded by Haldeman, George Howard and Mark Ross. Howard, is the former President of Rykodisc, co-founder of digital music distributor TuneCore, and a Berklee College of Music Professor. Ross is currently CEO of ACME Innovation, which creates access to the metaverse for media companies. ACME has financed a plethora of companies and startups including Audigent, Music Audience Exchange, Riptide Music Group and Project M, among others.
“I’m pleased to share that I’ve recently stepped full-time into this mission, taking on the role of CEO of Dequency. I’ve had an amazing eight years as CEO of Riptide Music Group and I’m proud of our growth over that time. The Dequency platform facilitates communication and direct transaction between music and visual creators, giving them the opportunity to benefit from this explosion of artists entering the space.” ~ Keatly Haldeman