The hardest thing about music royalty investing isn’t the analysis — it’s the access. Every major alternative asset fund knows that music IP generates predictable, growing cash flows. The result is fierce competition for premium catalogs, with Blackrock, Apollo, KKR, and Carlyle Group all chasing the same deals and pushing prices to 20–25x royalties.
BARS Fund doesn’t compete in that market. Here’s why we don’t need to — and why our deal flow advantage is the most defensible part of our strategy.
The Trophy Catalog Problem
When a legacy catalog from a globally recognized artist comes to market, it creates a bidding frenzy. The seller’s banker invites the usual suspects — Concord, Shamrock, Chord Music, Primary Wave — and runs a competitive process. The fund with the cheapest capital and the strongest relationship wins, usually at a multiple that leaves very thin margin for the acquirer.
These are the deals that generate Billboard headlines. They are also the worst economics in the music catalog market.
The institutional capital that has flooded into music IP has effectively priced itself out of the premium end of the market. Sophisticated LPs are increasingly asking catalog funds how they plan to generate alpha when acquisition multiples have expanded 2–3x in five years.
Where the Opportunity Is
The compelling opportunity in music royalty investing isn’t at the top. It’s in the mid-market: established artists with verifiable royalty histories, strong streaming fundamentals, and catalogs that aren’t yet “trophy” assets attracting maximum competition.
These artists have several characteristics that make them ideal BARS Fund partners:
- Consistent royalty income: 3–10 years of verifiable streaming, radio, and sync revenue
- Multiple income streams: Not dependent on a single platform or licensing relationship
- Underserved by traditional buyers: Too mid-market for the big trophy hunters, too established for the micro-catalog aggregators
- Open to partnership structures: Artists in this segment often prefer keeping ownership of their catalog while accessing the value it represents — exactly what BARS Fund’s SPV/pledge structure offers
The Team Access Advantage
The most frequent criticism leveled at new music fund entrants is: why would artists work with you instead of the established players?
Our answer is the team.
Shawn Mims — known professionally as MIMS, multi-platinum recording artist and serial entrepreneur — has direct, long-standing relationships across the artist community, management firms, and label ecosystem. He understands what artists actually want from catalog deals because he has been on both sides of those conversations for over two decades.
Corey “CL” Llewellyn runs one of the most influential music marketing and branding companies in the industry. His network spans managers, lawyers, accountants, and executives who touch catalog deals daily. He knows who has IP that’s available before it hits a formal process.
My own background spans music technology, blockchain, and executive production — including featured coverage in Billboard, Forbes, CoinDesk, Inc., and TechCrunch. The tech and crypto community’s growing interest in music IP creates deal flow opportunities that traditional catalog funds don’t access.
We’ve already tested our strategy with rights we currently own and doubled our investment in 8 months.
The Strategic Acquisition Advantage
Here’s the arithmetic that matters: a catalog that a trophy fund acquires at 18x royalties needs to grow significantly in value to generate a target return, after fees, carried interest, and the cost of the acquisition debt.
BARS Fund acquires at lower multiples — not because we’re cheap, but because we offer artists something competitors can’t: participation in Bitcoin upside on their existing catalog without selling it. The SPV pledge structure is a genuine financial innovation that creates value for the artist and for us simultaneously.
An artist who pledges $2M in annual royalties into our SPV structure retains ownership of their catalog, earns 80% of the Bitcoin treasury upside over the loan term, and partners with a fund that actually understands their world.
That’s not a pitch. That’s a product that traditional catalog funds structurally cannot offer — because they need to own the IP outright to justify their fund model.
Erik Mendelson is the founder and CEO of BARS Fund. The team has been featured in Billboard, Forbes, CoinDesk, Inc., and TechCrunch. Contact: erik@recordgram.com