Trac, which functions as “a one-stop shop for artists to monetize and manage all aspects of their careers,” has officially announced a $2.5 million pre-seed round.

Two-year-old Trac recently unveiled the multi-million dollar raise, led by Lagos, Nigeria-based Zrosk Investment Management. Entities such as Dapper Labs and the Calm Company Fund, as well as individuals like Dapper CEO Roham Gharegozlou and Siqi Chen of Sandbox VR, have also backed the artist monetization startup.

Trac, headquartered in Los Angeles, intends to use the $2.5 million tranche “to scale the business and increase its market reach while expanding its engineering teams and operating,” according to officials. (Cardin Campbell, former senior director of global marketing IT at Peloton, founded Trac and is the company’s CEO.)

As for the specifics of this growth plan, Trac currently offers artists “free” distribution on major platforms, through its website, and generates revenue from “Pro” plans, “tour pages” , “integrated merchandising pages” and synchronization offers.

In an effort to build on these features, Trac will “soon begin creating Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) for artists that will operate with their own unique artist tokens that encourage engagement,” executives revealed during the event. announcement of the funding cycle. Additionally, the startup highlighted the ongoing steps it is taking to “bridge Web2 and Web3” by “rapidly adding other integrated products to create the ultimate artist stack.”

And in a statement, the aforementioned CEO of Trac, Cardin Campbell, acknowledged the perceived career advantages given to artists who use one-stop monetization solutions.

“Artists shouldn’t have to worry about technology – what is a blockchain, an NFT, or even how to operate a crypto wallet,” said former Nike and Expedia executive Campbell. “They should have a platform at their fingertips that they can trust, that is constantly innovating and creating opportunities for them to monetize their passion.”

In a personal statement, Samson Esemuede, Chief Investment Officer of Zrosk, touted Campbell’s vision and the broader importance of Trac as music markets in Africa continue to grow and expand.

“The recording industry is ripe for disruption and has been for years. It’s an industry where many artists struggle to build a fanbase and monetize their careers,” Esemuede said. been captivated by Cardin’s passion and vision to symbolize the music industry, which not only solves these age-old problems, but finally puts the industry back on the right track.

“Furthermore, as Afrobeats becomes one of the biggest cultural exports from the African continent, trac provides the kind of infrastructure that ensures that the value generated by these exports is extracted by the people responsible for their creation,” he said. he concluded.

In terms of investments in the African music space so far in 2022, Warner Music kicked off the year by acquiring a majority stake in Africori, while Nas participated the same month in a $20 million raise for Cape Town-based mobile game publisher Carry1st. Finally, Kobalt Music founder Willard Ahdritz closed out the first month of 2022 by joining the “unicorn board” of Norrsken22, a tech fund that is set to spend $200 million to support African businesses.