Royal raised $71 million to let fans invest in artists and own their music. In February 2021, Blau released what's claimed as the first album-NFT expecting $100k in sales but got $11.7 million instead, signaling a shift in how artists could be funded.
He decided to start Royal, which raised about $71 million from Andreessen Horowitz and some other investors. So you get to invest in artists, you get to own your favorite music. And I think that's something special. I mean, this hasn't been done before. And, you know, I think at some point someone's going to do this. And, you know, why not Blau? I mean, he understands the artists, he understands the pain of these artists. And I think this is special. So, you know, you can see he did something with Nas over here. Verite or Verite. I haven't heard of this person before. So not only that though, Blau— I mean, so this is Blau right here, right? Basically in February of 2021, he sold an NFT, an album, and he was only expecting to do about— only about $100,000 in sales there. But he actually sold that album for about $11.7 million. And so that wasn't something that he was expecting, but it's the very first album NFT ever. So there's value in that.
