Utopia Music divests ROSTR in a strategic refocus on financial services for the music industry

07 February 2023 - Press release

FOUNDERS MARK WILLIAMSON AND ADAM WATSON TO REACQUIRE THE COMPANY

 

• Utopia’s strategic reorganization into two divisions (Music Services, Royalty Platform), sees it refocus on delivering value and growth to the music industry through financial infrastructure and services 

• Utopia purchased ROSTR in December 2021 with the intent to strengthen its direct offering towards creators. As of the strategic reorganization, Utopia will now focus on serving creators through third parties via their B2B offering

• For that reason, Utopia has sold ROSTR, a free-to-use modern music industry directory and data platform, back to the company’s founders Mark Williamson and Adam Watson

• ROSTR is now an independent company and will continue to work to connect the entertainment industry for the benefit of artists and their teams 

 

Utopia Music, the Swiss fintech company, has announced the sale of ROSTR, a free-to-use modern music industry directory and data platform, back to the company’s founders Mark Williamson and Adam Watson. 

Utopia purchased ROSTR in December 2021 with the intent to strengthen its direct offering towards creators. As part of the company’s strategic reorganization, Utopia will now focus on serving creators through third parties via its B2B offerings. 

Utopia’s Royalty Platform is fully dedicated to building and scaling a financial infrastructure and products for the music industry that enable it to capture the flow of royalties and process them accurately and efficiently. It's through this end-to-end service that Utopia hopes to become the definitive partner for royalty processing and payments in the music industry. 

Mattias Hjelmstedt, Executive Chairman and Founder of Utopia Music, said: “Our Utopian vision is that the music industry can fully monetize the use of music in all its forms and continue to grow as a result. We’re working hard to make this a reality, by focusing our efforts on building the financial infrastructure and B2B services for the music industry to process and pay out royalties quickly and accurately. 

“Utopia and ROSTR came together with a shared mission of making a better world for music, although we’ll be pursuing this mission on separate paths, we know ROSTR is an invaluable resource for the music industry and we wish Mark, Adam, and the whole ROSTR team the best of luck.”

Mark Williamson, CEO and Co-Founder of ROSTR said: “When we were given the opportunity to re-acquire ROSTR, we had to take it; we have unfinished business helping to build a more connected entertainment industry. We’d like to thank Utopia for the last year and wish them all the success going forward.”

ROSTR maps the largest database of artist teams including hundreds of thousands of relationships between artists, managers, agents, labels and publishers. ROSTR is now an independent company owned by the original founders Mark Williamson and Adam Watson who will continue serving artists and their teams directly with data and tools to help them navigate the Music Industry.