Guy Oseary manages nearly $100 million at A-Grade Investments, backing companies like Spotify, which has 6 million users and will pay $500 million to the music industry. He sees startup founders like musical talent: you need the rock-star presence, vision, and marketability to win.
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All right, let's head on back to the All Things Digital conference. From music mogul to venture capital rock star, Adam Shapiro is now with Guy Oseary for this exclusive interview. Adam?
Yeah, that's an accurate title, you know, music rock star, capital venture rock star, because Guy Oseary, not only the manager of Madonna, but part of A-Grade Investments. You've heard of Ashton Kutcher, you've heard of Ron Burkle, but Guy Oseary has just successfully, with his partners, raised close to $100 million now The value of the fund for future investments. So where do you put that money? Are you seeing things here that might be the next big thing?
Well, we're going to do exactly what we've been doing for the last few years. We just have done it with our own money. And we're always looking for innovation and companies that we believe we can help.
But the topic we keep hearing this year is mobile first, the end of the PC. PCs are yesterday's news. So mobile first. How do people make money? I mean, for instance, you're invested in Spotify. How do you take that forward and make the kind of money that is going to make it worth your while to be invested?
Well, Spotify is currently valued at over $3 billion. Spotify this year will already— people are just still finding out about it. They have about 6 million people signed up. They will do— they will pay out to the music industry $500 million this year.
Mm-hmm.
And that's pretty big for a company that just started. And you've heard all— you've heard a lot about the music industry is dead, and it's in trouble. And here comes a company out of nowhere that's going to pay out half a billion dollars to the music industry, and it's just starting to pick up momentum.
Changing the whole landscape of how the music industry actually operates. I mean, years ago you had to get the record label, they had to cut the album, and you were marketed. Now an artist with a manager can actually do this all on their own. I mean, that's what we're learning.
They can, but you shouldn't discount, you know, record labels or even independent record labels. There's something about a team. And I came from the record company, and I had Maverick Records many years back. And, you know, you need a team. You need people to help you with everything. Everything from, you know, how to market your record, how to get it out, to—
I mean, I get with Spotify, which I'm just a new member of Spotify, and I'm enjoying it. I understand how music, you know, on my smartphone or on my iPad. But what about Airbnb? Or how do you monetize these future Um, applications that will all be mobile.
Well, Airbnb, I mean, right now we're getting rid of things we don't need anymore. We can now actually, um, go directly to the person who's renting me their apartment, right? I can talk to them directly without having a middleman be part of that, without having a, you know, 2-week guarantee or all the stuff that comes, the clunkiness of of trying to connect those dots. And now Airbnb makes it seamless. You just— you can go on, you'll see 20, 30 photos of the place you're gonna rent. You're gonna see— the person who's renting is gonna see comments about you as a person who's gonna rent. So it really makes this a very incredible way to pick where you want to stay, and it's very cost-effective.
And finally, when you see a startup, what are perhaps the key traits you look for before you're willing to put your money on the line?
You know, the founder. It's like, you know, from my record company background, you want to see a rock star walk in the room. You want to see someone and go, you know what, they've got talent. And they have— they can carry themselves like they've got talent. And you go, I'm going to bet on this person, right? We have to find those artists very, very early on, before anyone ever heard it on the radio, years before they heard it on the radio. And it's that same feeling now, when you see a founder, and they walk in a room, and they share their vision with you. You know, they are the rock star, and they're sharing their music with you. They're sharing their album with you. And I look at it and go, can I help market that album? Can I help market that vision in the same way that I've been doing since I was a kid?
All right, Guy Oseary, thank you for joining us.
Sure.
We heard earlier in the day smartphone penetration globally only 21%. When you talk about the upside for all of this, not only for your firm, but all of the firms and the people who are here, there is a lot of money to be made. So we're going to throw it back to New York, but we appreciate you being with us and all the best to you.
