Is Raleigh going to be home for the next big hit in the music industry? None other than Coolio is betting on The Royalty Exchange.
The Royalty Exchange, a startup online marketplace for buying and selling royalties, scored its latest coup this week, announcing it is auctioning the full song portfolio of rapper and five-time Grammy winner Coolio.
Bidders can log on in at www.theroyaltyexchange.com to register for the auction, which starts on Aug. 28 at 12 p.m. time and ends on Aug. 29 at 2 p.m.
The catalog includes 123 songs from eight different albums and includes the former Billboard #1 hit song “Gangsta’s Paradise.”
The catalog is being auctioned by Coolio himself. He wants to use the money to help further his cooking career.
The Royalty Exchange points out that through “Food Network’s Celebrity Chefs,” Coolio as “rapper-turned-media entrepreneur launched a career as a popular author and chef. His 2009 cookbook Cookin’ with Coolio became a New York Times bestseller and Coolio plans to invest the funds from the song catalog sale to expand his cookbook series and his online cooking show of the same name.”
Bidding starts at $140,000.
“The Coolio song catalog auction is an exciting and rare opportunity for anyone looking for an alternative investment in music publishing and songwriter royalties,” says Sean Peace, Royalty Exchange’s CEO. “We are thrilled to be able to offer royalties attached to such an iconic artist, and to assist interested parties in the research, registration and bidding process.”
Billboard earlier this month gave The Royalty Exchange plenty of press.
“With big private-equity firms finding music publishing assets attractive, an upstart company wants to see if it can create a market for selling rights to individual investors,” the magazine says. “But the ambitions of the Royalty Exchange don’t stop there: Principals also envision the development a secondary market where units of assets would be sold like a stock or a bond.”
The industry standard for music also noted the company’s rapid start.
“Since its inception in July 2011, the Royalty Exchange has sold royalty-producing assets that combined have brought in $875,000, including songs by Preston Glass and Edmund Clement and titles owned by an heir of Frank Churchill, who wrote tunes for Disney movies, including ‘Whistle While You Work,’ Billboard noted in its report.
Raleigh-based The Royalty Exchange was founded in 2011 as a secure online marketplace bringing buyers and sellers together for auctions of rights in music, entertainment, publishing, patents, trademarks and other royalty revenue streams. The company has managed royalty sales of artists such as Whitney Houston and Travis Tritt.
And more business is coming.
Upcoming auctions include songs from the catalog of songwriter Edmund Clement, whose songs were recorded by Usher, TLC, and Chris Brown among others.
In July, Royalty Exchange raised $2.1 million in funding.
