Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

Warner Music invests in Instrumental

By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 22 December 2015

Warner Music has just invested a load of cash into Instrumental, the company formerly known as PopShack. So that’s nice. For the company formerly known as PopShack.

Instrumental is an artist discovery and development business that focuses on new acts emerging through that social media thing they have now. The start-up already had an alliance with Warner via its CEO, former Warner exec Conrad Withey.

Under the new deal, the mini-major will provide financial backing and also collaborate with Instrumental on various things, like A&R, artist development, YouTube channel management, release promotion, brand and content partnerships. Oh, and Warner will also get first dibs on acts signed up to Instrumental’s new artist management division, Instrumental Artists.

Confirming the new arrangement, Withey said this: “This is an extremely exciting development for the business. The investment and partnership gives artists joining Instrumental the confidence that we can help them go from social stars to the top of the charts. Warner Music is a company I know well and the whole team at Instrumental are excited about the potential of this partnership in the UK and around the world to unlock value for artists and brands”.

Warner Music UK CEO Max Lousada, who will join the board of Instrumental as a non-executive director, added: “We want to be where creators are and we want to be where fans are. The multi-channel network space is somewhere those communities are connecting in rapidly growing numbers, so this investment opens up a number of exciting opportunities for us both creatively and commercially”.