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Join Elizabeth Dilts Marshall, Billboard's senior finance correspondent, as she sits down with Lior Tibon, CEO and Co-Founder of Duetti, to discuss how Duetti is a music financing platform reshaping how music rights are managed and monetized. In this captivating conversation, they explore the challenges and opportunities in the evolving music rights ecosystem, the role of technology, and how Duetti is empowering artists and investors.
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00:00Hi, I'm Elizabeth Diltz-Marshall. I'm Billboard's senior finance correspondent, and I'm here today with Liora Thibon, CEO and co
00:08-founder of Dueti.
00:10Dueti is one of the fastest growing companies that's working with independent artists to buy up their music rights, masters
00:18and publishing, and promote their music.
00:21Thanks for joining us.
00:23Thank you for having me.
00:24So, Dueti is often described as a music catalog company, but there's a big difference between a Dueti and Harborview
00:32Equity Partners, or a recognition, and not just because you're buying different kinds of music.
00:38So, would you encourage people to think of Dueti more as in the line of, like, belief?
00:44Well, that's a great question, and I do get it a lot, and I often find myself trying to explain
00:49the difference.
00:50So, Dueti is a company. We're not a fund.
00:53Some of the examples you mentioned and others, they're financial funds.
00:58What's the difference?
00:59The difference is that the money that we raise, and in particular the equity money that we raise, sits on
01:06our balance sheet for the long term.
01:08There is no expiry date for that money.
01:10And therefore, we have more leeway to invest in infrastructure and to try and improve the rights that we own
01:20over the long term.
01:21So, I think that's really the key difference between what we do and some of these catalog funds that you've
01:26mentioned.
01:27For example, we have right now close to 80 people in the company.
01:32That's a pretty significant infrastructure that we're building, and the only way that we could do that is by raising
01:39money on balance sheet for the long term to support kind of the team and the ongoing growth of the
01:44company.
01:44We haven't even talked about the music that you own.
01:50I've had the pleasure of talking to some of the artists whose music you acquired recently, but share some of
01:55their names.
01:55They're not necessarily household names the way maybe like some other funds have acquired.
02:02Yeah, they're not, but they're still pretty significant artists, right?
02:08And so, an example that I always like to give is Roland Garcia.
02:12He's an artist from Mexico.
02:13He has, I think, over 12 million monthly listeners on Spotify only every single month.
02:21He's touring, he's out there, he's doing amazing things, he's keep creating, and, you know, we own part of his
02:30catalog, both on the master side and the publishing side, right?
02:34And so, whenever I sit with folks, particularly people here in the U.S., right, and, you know, the kind
02:39of, the conversation is, okay, what type of music do you own?
02:43Well, yeah, probably a lot of the folks I'm speaking with, especially if they're investors of a certain age, they
02:49would not be familiar with Roland's music.
02:52But a lot of people in Mexico or Mexican-Americans that are maybe younger demographics probably know who that is,
03:00and especially if we play some of his songs.
03:02And so, the bottom line is that the music that we have, they're not the household names.
03:08You know, just a few weeks ago, right, we saw in the press that Britney Spears sold her rights.
03:14And so, these names are really big household names.
03:16That's not what we do, but we do work with artists that are very, very significant and have a lot
03:23of traction.
03:24And the final point, I would say, we also work a lot with emerging talents, right?
03:28We work with folks that started out over the last few years.
03:32Maybe they've, you know, they've achieved some level of commercial success, and they really are working with Duetti to kind
03:38of put kind of more fuel on the fire and allow them to produce more music.
03:43So, Duetti just released its 2025 Music Economics Report.
03:47You had findings sort of like this, like we're talking about right now, very specific findings like if an artist
03:55wants to release a hip-hop song, they should do so in the spring.
04:01It does, you know, significantly better.
04:05A track that's in-country or Christian does best when it's released in the winter for whatever reason.
04:11Tell me a little bit about the technology that lets you uncover those types of specific actionable findings and what
04:21people should do with that.
04:23Yeah, and so I mentioned earlier, we have 80 people, roughly a third of our folks are really on the
04:30data and engineering and data science teams, and that's what they do all day long, right?
04:35And so they're looking for statistical models.
04:40We're applying machine learning, we're applying AI in huge volumes of streaming information, of social media information, of financial information,
04:51whether it's forms that we own, whether it's of information that we can kind of find online.
04:54We also work very closely in collaboration with Luminate, with Chartmetric, and with other music data companies in order to
05:02kind of harvest them and make sense of all this information.
05:06To answer your question directly, the reality is it's a lot of trial and error, right?
05:13Like it's not kind of let's look at the data and see what we find.
05:20It's more let's run a lot of different experiments, particularly on the marketing side of different hypotheses, and see whether
05:29they play out and whether you can kind of prove them or not.
05:32That's really our approach. Our approach to the marketing is a more classic performance marketing approach, so it's more to
05:41run a lot of different experiments at the same time, and then double down on whatever we see a signal
05:45that works.
05:46Given that Duetti acquires music that is younger, as recent as released two years ago, do trends change quickly?
05:58So for example, one of the findings in the economics report that you just released was, correct me where I'm
06:06wrong, an artist can like increase like by 18% their per track annual streaming revenue if they release more
06:17frequently, as frequently as three tracks in a year, or like an album every year.
06:22You know, is that advice artists can take forward to 2026? Might it change even as soon as 2027?
06:29Yeah, I mean, I think the data points that we've seen, I don't think they're super new.
06:35I think there are things that have been out there and we're kind of packaged them and kind of put
06:40a finer point on them.
06:42And so I don't think it's going to change a lot next year. I think that's just something that we
06:47observe and we kind of wanted to highlight.
06:50And as it comes to the advice, look, I think I always tell folks that talk to me, first and
06:56foremost, you know, artists need to do what makes sense for them, right?
07:01Like it's very easy for us to sit here and kind of look at the data and come up with
07:06like a list of tips.
07:06Crank out an album a year.
07:08Right, right, exactly, right? But like ultimately it's about the music and it's about your artistic creation.
07:15And so that's the most important thing, right? Like if you're doing something that doesn't really make a ton of
07:20sense to you, I think that will show.
07:23And that's going to, it's not going to land well with your audience, right?
07:27So that's really the first layer. The kind of the data that we're surfacing and the point of views that
07:33we're putting out there are really geared towards informed, better decisions around that core artistic creation that folks are focused
07:41on.
07:42Coming back to the artists that work with you, what makes a song rise to the level that duety analysts
07:50pick up on it?
07:51For example, you know, is there a threshold that a song has to reach on YouTube before you make an
07:57offer?
07:58There is. So what we say publicly and to anyone who asks, we really have two key criteria that we're
08:06putting out there if folks want to kind of approach us or we're approaching people and trying to have a
08:11conversation.
08:12Number one is age. The track has to be at least two years old.
08:16That's really important for us because that has provided us with some initial level of information and some proof of
08:24commercial success so we can engage with you constructively.
08:28The second point is the volume of streaming, which is of course an approximation of revenue.
08:35And so what we're saying is that you really need to have in a year at least half a million
08:39streams across all platforms, not just YouTube.
08:42So it can be across, you know, Spotify, YouTube, Apple, Amazon, or whatever other platform that you use.
08:48These are really the two key criteria.
08:51Once someone satisfies those two criteria, in theory, in most cases, we should be able to engage with them and
09:00potentially to come up with a proposal if they're interested to pursue.
09:05And how much does an artist typically make off a deal with Duetti?
09:09Yeah, so look, it's a very broad range and it can go anywhere from $10,000 to $10 million and
09:16anywhere in between.
09:17The truth is that the majority of the artists that we do deals with are probably in the five-figure
09:22or six-figures.
09:23But we do do a lot of seven-figure deals as well and every month there's a bunch of them
09:28also.
09:29So it really varies.
09:30Every month. We haven't even talked about how much.
09:33I said you were fast growing, but tell us how fast growing.
09:35We are growing very fast and so just recently we said we're doing over 80 deals every single month.
09:43And we've done deals with over 1,100 artists and songwriters, right?
09:48And so we are growing very fast.
09:51The pace of deal-making is well over double what it was a year ago.
09:55And we think we're going to continue and we're seeing, we don't see any breaks on our growth this year.
10:02I have to ask, with that many transactions going through the doors that often, have you ever had an unhappy
10:08customer?
10:10You know, not really.
10:12Nothing that I can kind of come up with.
10:17I think the key for us...
10:18Yeah, so I think one of the most important decisions we made very early on, which was pretty difficult to
10:27make,
10:27is that we were very focused on structuring our deals in a very straightforward way.
10:34And what do I mean by that?
10:36Number one, you do the deal with us if you so choose.
10:41And you really don't have to do another deal with us ever again, right?
10:47And so we're shying away from what I think most music companies do, which I don't like.
10:54Five-year arrangements, seven-year arrangements, rights of first refusal,
10:59all these different type of things that I think artists sign up to when they kind of just want to
11:04get something going.
11:06And then they end up in a very long-term scenario that they always need to go back and ask
11:10for approvals and so on and so forth, right?
11:14And so I think by making the determination that it's one deal and that's kind of it.
11:21And it's up to us to go back to you and trying to convince you to walk with us again.
11:25And many do.
11:26Many do come back and do a second and third deal and even more than that.
11:30I think that creates a much healthier relationship that our industry is not used to.
11:35So I think that's the first thing.
11:37The second thing, the deal itself is structured in a very simple way.
11:43It's a sale.
11:44There's no recoupment.
11:46There are no loans, no advances, no buyback clauses that sometimes is, you know, people, maybe some would have liked
11:54to have.
11:55But I think that that makes the discussion maybe a little bit more difficult because it's very direct and very
12:02transparent.
12:03But it's also, I think, very clear.
12:05And so what would not happen with us, I think, and hasn't happened to your question on kind of the
12:12relationship post-sale,
12:15we haven't been in a situation where someone came to us after, oh, I did not understand what I'm signing
12:21up for,
12:23which we're hearing in this industry all the time, right, for artists that are doing this with labels and other
12:30companies.
12:30And I think that, again, put something at the core of the relationship that we have with artists and songwriters
12:38and other creators
12:38in a very healthy, transparent way that does project on kind of the going forward relationship.
12:44A little over three and a half years, Dueti has raised over $600 million in financing.
12:49This includes $100 million in equity financing from investors like Rain Group, and we mentioned Rock Nation, Flexpoint Forward,
12:56Nika Partners and Viola, and also over $200 million from the ABS markets.
13:04This always gets difficult to explain, but the asset-backed securities market, the debt markets,
13:10have become a popular place for music companies to go to for very affordable financing lately
13:18because they're securitizing music rights the way companies, insurance companies, healthcare companies,
13:25all kinds of mortgage companies have securitized rights for decades now.
13:31Every other music company that has done this, though, has done it with older songs that have decades of streaming
13:39data to study
13:40that often are also well-known songs or are by well-known acts.
13:47Dueti was the first to do it with newer music in this vein from independent emerging artists.
13:53What does it say about the industry, about the market appetite, that you were able to do that now twice
13:59successfully?
14:00Yeah, it says that the industry is evolving and investors are getting more and more educated
14:04on what it means to invest in music and how do you value and approach music rights.
14:09I recently came back from the annual securitization conference that happens in Vegas every year.
14:16That's my third time going, and it was every year that I go, there is so much more interest by
14:24ABS investors,
14:25debt investors, into music.
14:27I think they like the fact that music is what is called uncorrelated asset class,
14:34and in simple terms, it means that the financial trends in music has typically nothing to do
14:42with what's happening in a broader economy.
14:44In other words, in good times and bad times, people still listen to music.
14:47They keep their streaming subscription, and so music doesn't get disrupted
14:52if the economy goes up or goes down that much,
14:55and that provides a lot of diversity which they're looking for, right?
14:59A lot of these investors come from insurance companies and pension funds,
15:02and so they want to ensure they have a very diversified pool of positions,
15:07and so whatever happens with the economy, they are protected against that.
15:14And the other point I want to mention is that music is still a small, small piece
15:19of the securitization market, which is enormous.
15:22And so there is more understanding by investors into what we're doing,
15:28and I also think there is a lot of demand for more music companies to come up
15:33and securitize, and I do think we're going to see a lot more names
15:37over the next couple of years, new names, coming to the market,
15:40whether they're companies that specialize more in kind of the A-list kind of household name catalogs,
15:47or also companies that come from maybe closer to what we do,
15:50maybe not exactly what we do, but maybe they do distribution services,
15:55or maybe they do advances, and ultimately by repackaging everything,
16:00they are going to be able to also approach the ABS market.
16:03Yeah, there is definitely still just a small, cool kids table
16:07for the music esoteric debt at these structured finance conferences.
16:13But to your point, CSAC did a whole business securitization last year.
16:20You probably will tap the debt markets again, right?
16:23That's right, yeah.
16:24To what end?
16:24You know, what is it used for?
16:26You've talked about how the equity financing is used for your operations expenses,
16:32to hire people, to grow your staff and your platform.
16:35Yeah.
16:35Where does the ABS money go to?
16:38The ABS, the funds that we get from the ABS markets allow us to go and continue to buy the
16:45catalogs, right?
16:46And so it's a very efficient source of funding for various reasons.
16:51Number one, it's cheaper.
16:52And so the interest rate is lower than what you would get if you go to one investor on a
16:58private basis
16:58and kind of get financing from them.
17:03And then secondly, it's a very liquid source of financing,
17:07meaning that there is a lot of it, right?
17:09So us, we're still kind of a small player, even in the music context.
17:14And so we have just over $200 million of debt outstanding.
17:17But, you know, when we get to many hundreds of millions,
17:22when we get to potentially billions in one day,
17:24it's a lot more helpful to be tapped into that market
17:28versus walking on a bilateral basis in kind of the private debt markets.
17:32We talked about how this is, that you were the first to do it with newer songs.
17:37Part of that is that you have to persuade investors to be comfortable
17:42with songs that have a shorter track record of data to study.
17:48How did you approach that?
17:50How did you convince people to get comfortable?
17:51First of all, we're showing them a lot of statistical analysis that we do.
17:56And so you do need to have very robust methodologies,
18:01complicated models that really show a lot of different cuts of the information
18:05and compare, you know, different cases
18:08and to show people that you know what you're doing
18:10and you're sifting through the information in a way that makes sense.
18:13The second point that I always explain investors
18:16that don't really understand the music industry
18:18and they're maybe newer to music,
18:22I always go back to the fact that every stream,
18:25on average, is worth around a third of a cent.
18:28So what does that mean?
18:29It means that even if you have a relatively small catalog, right?
18:35So let's say a catalog that is backed by $10,000 of annual cash receipts,
18:40that number, and even if it's, to your point, only for a couple of years,
18:45that number, that $10,000 over a two-year period
18:50is based on millions and millions of data points
18:53and millions and millions of people listening to that music.
18:57And so you do have a lot of information that you can use
19:00and analyze and detect trends, right?
19:02And I think taking a step back, talking to these debt investors,
19:08I think there are very, very few cases in the broader economy
19:12where you can provide debt against a $10,000 cash flow stream
19:17that is really backed by millions of data points.
19:20And so in a way, a music investment is pretty secure,
19:25if you think about it, right?
19:26Like you compare that to a car loan.
19:28Houses or car loans.
19:30Right, like you're really depending on the behavior of one individual, right?
19:34Whether they keep their job, whether they keep their payments on time.
19:37And in music, $10,000,
19:38you're depending on behaviors of millions of people, right?
19:42Let alone if it's $100,000 and up.
19:46And so it's a very, very different dynamic,
19:48and ultimately I think that's what provides confidence to people.
19:52Interesting.
19:52It's hard to have a conversation at any point these days
19:56without discussing AI,
19:57especially in the context of intellectual property and music.
20:03Does AI pose a threat to the value of the songs in your portfolio?
20:08On balance, my answer is no.
20:11We look at it fairly positively.
20:13We think that's going to, over time,
20:16create new ways to exploit music,
20:18to interact with music,
20:20and so we think it will extend the intellectual property,
20:23and we think that it's actually a revenue opportunity
20:25in the next few years.
20:27And so we're pretty excited about that.
20:29I think it always takes time for the music industry
20:32to adjust and to figure out
20:34the right mechanisms and coordination
20:37of how to track usage and how to pay.
20:41But we're part of that, right?
20:43And so that's what we're observing is happening now.
20:46But as I look through it,
20:49I think we're going to be able,
20:50as an industry,
20:51to navigate it successfully.
20:52Is there something...
20:54I kind of know where I'm going with this,
20:56but what's one thing about the music industry
20:58that you would change if you could?
21:00How much we spend on lawyers?
21:02How much we spend on lawyers?
21:03Yes.
21:04I mean, I do like my lawyers.
21:05I have many of them,
21:06and I like you all.
21:08But yes,
21:09I think the legal bills
21:12that we all pay are too high.
21:14Yes, we did talk about it,
21:16and one of the biggest conversations we had,
21:21Chris and I,
21:21when we started the company a few years ago,
21:24I remember we actually compared
21:28what we're trying to do to,
21:30if you're familiar,
21:31and I think we spoke about it as well,
21:32in the venture industry,
21:34a safe note that Y Combinator went up with, right?
21:38That was, I think,
21:40well over 10 years ago,
21:42but the idea is that
21:43not every venture deal
21:45for $200,000 or even $2 million
21:49needs to be extremely complex,
21:51extremely bespoke.
21:52You're talking about startups,
21:53younger companies.
21:55Let's just have a template
21:56that everyone is looking at,
21:58everyone is confident with,
22:00to provide that certainty,
22:01and use that,
22:03at least at the beginning.
22:05And that's a little bit
22:06what we're trying to do with the idea, right?
22:08We're trying to come up
22:09with simplified legal structures
22:11that are not going to require
22:13for every single deal,
22:15especially if these are smaller deals,
22:17in terms of just the overall size,
22:18to spend an amount of money
22:22on legal fees, right?
22:24And I think this is something
22:25that I wish others in the industry
22:28will adopt,
22:29and will just make
22:31everyone's life a lot easier.
22:33It was a pleasure talking to you.
22:34Thank you very much.
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