Stem, the distribution and payments platform empowering independent musicians and labels, has announced a new round of funding that involves Quality Control’s Coach K.
Stem has assembled a highly strategic group of investors, senior advisors and Board Members for their $10 million funding including Coach K, Co-Founder and COO of Quality Control Music (home of Lil Baby, Migos, City Girls); Mark Gillespie, manager of Calvin Harris; individual managers under Red Light Management; and Baron Davis, two-time NBA All-Star.
The company also noted that it passed $100 million in royalties paid out to independent artists since 2015, as of this month. In addition, Stem’s $100M artist advance fund, Scale, which launched earlier this year, has been a successful resource to independent artists. Scale enables artists to manage their own careers with capital and resources previously only afforded to artists at large record label companies.
“Stem was created to provide independent artists with the ability to manage and grow their careers and teams autonomously,” said Milana Rabkin Lewis, CEO of Stem. “With this new round of financing, we are focused on accelerating the portfolio of products offered to our artists. We’ve assembled the top players in music who have built careers of the world’s top artists to amplify our efforts.”
“We are proud and excited to be a part of Stem,” said Kevin ‘Coach K’ Lee, co-founder and COO of Quality Control Music. “The company is a leader in innovative products and will advance the way the entire music community handles its financial and administrative business. The automation around the split process is seamless which we see as vital for the growth of all artists and the economy of their output.”
Stem reveals that Zac Brown Band, Foster the People, Jeezy and Desiigner; multi-platinum artists New Kids on the Block and growing independent record label Big Loud Records, Freebandz, Future’s record label; and emerging artists Brent Faiyaz, Justine Skye, bbno$, LP, Toro y Moi, and Poolside have all used their platform to distribute their music.