Melanie Merse

Kobalt Music

Kobalt is one of the world's largest, most innovative music companies, using technology to power creative freedom, transparency, ownership and control for artists, songwriters, publishers, and labels. As file-sharing wreaked havoc on the record industry, Kobalt took a bet on digital music and won. Founded in 2000 by Swedish entrepreneur Willard Ahdritz, the startup built a platform to maximize efficiency, accuracy, and transparency across the billions of micro-payments collected in today's highly complex digital world. As traditional music companies fought technology and contracted, Kobalt embraced it and grew, building an infrastructure and world-class creative team purposely designed to usher in the streaming era, along with a more fair, rewarding music business for creators. Today, Kobalt has over 700 employees in 12 offices around the world, represents over 20,000 artists and songwriters, 600,000 songs and 600 publishing companies, and continues to push its disruptive philosophy and values into other areas of the music industry. Recent innovations AMRA, the world's first global digital performing rights organization, are both considered major agents of change in their respective businesses. Kobalt is proud to work with some of the world's greatest artists and songwriters, representing on average over 60% of the top 100 songs in both the US and UK. Kobalt clients include Childish Gambino, Marshmello, Beck, Wolf Alice, Max Martin, Ozuna, Tash Sultana, Paul McCartney and MPL Communications, Disney Music Group, and many more.