Lakeba Group and LÜM have cosied up together. At first glance, an odd coupling. The only thing they have in common is an understanding of the internet and code. Yet this match could well prove to be enlightening.
Lakeba has seen potential in LÜM and took a stake in the platform through its successful $US3 million Seed II funding round. An active investor, Lakeba will provide its knowledge and experience in commercialising fintech businesses to help LÜM. Scaling the platform across operating systems and markets quickly, with an initial focus on developing its Android app.
Giuseppe Porcelli, chief executive at Lakeba confirmed; “It’s a massive deal. One of the most diverse collaborations happening in the world of fintech.”
It’s the fintech connection that’s got people talking.
LÜM couldn’t be further from a fintech. Operating in the music business. Revolutionising it by enabling fans to discover, listen to, connect and reward emerging artists directly. Cutting out the middleman. With a focus on grass roots music.
Having created a social network dedicated exclusively to the discovery, engagement and reward of local emerging artists. Music fans discover the music they love, in the neighbourhoods where they attend gigs. Artists find their fans in the neighbourhoods they’re touring. The philosophy is that both will grow up together, creating fans of popular artists on their terms. Rather than music industry terms.
Its model is changing the business of music. Disrupting the music industry’s dominance with the big artists. Where the industry pushes artists that have the biggest fan base, thereby compounding the market for their recordings. Even the supposed egalitarian streaming services finesse their algorithms to create their best ever profits.
Instead, LÜM allows artists to directly give their fans value through their music, experiences and merch. Fans return that value in the form of LÜM Notes. These Notes are digital tokens that artists can exchange for cash. Since January 2020, 13,000 artists have received a total of 21 million Notes, thereby creating an income stream from their art.
This is the sweet spot where LÜM and Lakeba meet. LÜM’s smoothing the playing field where artists and fans exchange value. Lakeba’s working on eradicating the frictions from the transactions that have money make the world go round.
LÜM’s shaking up the status quo created by the massive recording labels and now by the likes of Apple, Google, Spotify and Amazon. Lakeba’s liberating people’s financial freedoms with radical intelligence that the big banks have denied their customers. Both are the champions at grass roots. Lakeba’s expertise being the credit unions and mutual banks that are the antidotes to the ills the Banking Royal Commission blames on the big end of town.
“This is an exciting way of working together,” commented a banking source. She’s requested to stay anonymous.
“The lacklustre performance, in comparative terms, of fintech lies with the echo chamber it is in – where bankers assert themselves over technologists and technologist land up building what bankers have always wanted. They both forget about the customer.”
Time will tell if Porcelli is right about the magnitude of this deal. The truth of it is that it’s got tremendous potential. In the simplicity that music is only art if it has a passionate audience. Maybe the future of banking lies in the passion of its customers? Money has always been very personal.
