Music Tech Friends: Charting the Next Phase of Music Tech
Operator-level analysis of funding, infrastructure, and creator tools in music technology
Music Tech is entering a more measured chapter following several years of rapid growth and experimentation.
As funding dynamics shift and expectations reset, there is increasing demand for clearer, operator-level insight into how the space is evolving. Music Tech Friends was launched in that context, combining analysis with a focus on the people building within the sector.
I connected with the MTF team to disucss why they started the project, what they’re seeing across funding, infrastructure, and creator tools, and how they expect the next 12–18 months to unfold as the space matures.
Music tech has gone through multiple hype cycles—from streaming to creator tools to AI. What gap or shift did you see that made Music Tech Friends feel necessary right now, not just useful?
Music tech has been through enough hype cycles. What it needs now is honesty about what actually works.
There is a generation of music tech executives who have spent years in the trenches and understand the industry’s strange Russian-doll structure: layers of platforms, rights holders, vendors, intermediaries, and incentives nested inside one another.
Music Tech Friends exists to open those dolls up, bring more transparency to how the business really works and replace unnecessary, cagey competition with a collaborative brain trust.
We take the work seriously, but not ourselves. The drinks and parties are part of it, because real trust is built between people, not company logos. But the mission is bigger: cut through the hype, focus on core problems and support technology that creates real value and makes money for artists and the businesses built to support them. That kind of openness feels necessary right now.
A lot of music tech coverage either skews overly optimistic or purely financial. How are you thinking about balancing operator-level insight with clear-eyed analysis of what’s actually working (and what isn’t)?
The irony of most music tech coverage being either overly optimistic or purely financial is that neither angle tells you whether a product is actually working for the people using it.
We’re not writing from the sidelines. Between us, we’ve built alongside founders, run partnerships, and sat inside the operating reality of these companies, so we know the difference between a launch that provides value for a core userbase and one that’s purely hype. We’re always evaluating what’s actually converting, retaining, or making money.
We’re also willing to say when something isn’t working, even when it’s a space we’re bullish on long term. The goal isn’t to be contrarian for its own sake. We hope to give founders, operators, and investors a source that treats a complex industry with the nuance it deserves.
Community is a core part of your pitch with meetups and founders. What have you learned so far about where music tech builders are aligned—and where their incentives quietly clash?
There’s no shortage of events and communities across the music industry such as professional groups, trade organizations, conferences, etc. However, through our fractional work, we found ourselves talking to founders and operators at very different companies who were solving remarkably similar problems and didn’t yet know each other. The gaps between people working on the same challenges were surprising.
That’s why we launched Music Tech Friends. It’s intentionally informal - a happy hour where titles get stripped away and people just relate to each other on the thing they’re passionate about. Builders, all in one room, no agenda beyond conversation.
What we’ve learned is that beyond the obvious competitive overlaps, most people in this space are actually incentivized to compare notes and, quite often, to partner in order to help one another achieve their aims.
This is especially true at a time when a small number of companies control disproportionate mindshare and capital. When you get people in a room without corporate posturing, the instinct isn’t to protect territory. Instead it’s to figure out how to make things better for fans and artists together.
Fundraising in music tech has tightened compared to the peak years. What patterns are you seeing in who’s still getting funded, and what does that say about where the industry is actually headed?
Our first article on Music Tech Friends actually dug into this. The headline is that yes, traditional institutional VC at the early stage has tightened but in many ways the pace of building feels stronger than ever.
Almost every week there’s a new raise, an acquisition, or a product launch that moves the conversation forward.
Music tech has never been as lucrative for exits as Big Tech, and it probably never will be. But because of that you have a community of founders who are deeply mission-driven. AI is changing how consumers and prosumers create and consume music, which means the problems that need solving are evolving in real time. Every startup right now is essentially a bet on an answer to those questions.
The pattern we’re seeing is that once a company proves product-market fit and sustainable revenue, there are more paths to outcomes than there were a few years ago.
You have the first wave of music tech companies from the 2010s - LANDR, Splice, and others - that are now potential acquirers. You also have music industry executives and artists stepping in as strategic angels and early-stage investors, filling some of the gap left by traditional VC.
So the funding environment looks different, but the ecosystem is arguably healthier. More building, more strategic capital, more acquisition pathways. The founders who clear the bar of real traction and real revenue are able to find open doors toward outcomes for themselves and their investors.
Looking ahead 12–24 months, which areas of music tech feel underexplored or mispriced right now—either by investors or by founders themselves?
We’ve got two we’re eyeing.
The mid-tier creator gap. Most investment targets either beginners (easy onboarding metrics and wider TAM) or established pros (high LTV). But the data working with our clients show the highest-converting cohort is prosumers, people past hobbyist stage who haven’t broken through yet. That middle is where actual conversion and retention happens, and it’s where the least capital and product attention goes. It’s mispriced because the growth metrics look smaller, but the lifetime value and stickiness are significantly higher.
Rights infrastructure and metadata plumbing. Incredible amounts of capital are flowing to AI music generation (Suno, Udio, ElevenLabs), but the actual plumbing for tracking, attributing, and paying royalties is still deeply broken. It’s unsexy, which is exactly why it’s underinvested, but the TAM is massive and the pain is universal across labels, distributors, and publishers. We’re throwing another reconciliation and administrative nightmare on top of a system that was broken even before genAI music.
What's coming up for Music Tech Friends for the rest of 2026, and a look ahead to 2027?
The rest of 2026 is about building on the early momentum. More meetups around upcoming music conferences, curated intimate events, and a healthy newsletter cadence. The goal is to build a real community, not just an audience. We’re watching music tech reshape in real time, and Music Tech Friends is the place where founders, operators, and investors can have honest conversations about what’s actually happening, and not just press releases.
Looking ahead to 2027, the vision is broader: a network that spans multiple countries, deeper industry analysis (interviews, data breakdowns), and growing our events community to include other organizations as well.
The thesis is that music tech is consolidating fast, and the community that understands that consolidation, and helps people navigate it, becomes essential infrastructure itself.