Navigating music rights and royalties can be quite intricate. Various types of royalties exist, and artists must ensure their information is current across all platforms to prevent lost earnings. It is a challenging endeavor for them to keep their data organized while also focusing on their creative work.

Mogul, a platform established by ex-SoundCloud head of creators Jeff Ponchick and former SoundCloud VP of engineering Joey Mason, announced on Tuesday that it has assisted artists in recovering $1.5 billion in unclaimed royalties since its inception last year.

The startup has additionally secured $5 million in a fresh funding round led by the Yamaha Music Innovations Fund with contributions from the Urban Innovation Fund, Mindset Ventures, and Fairway Capital Partners, along with existing backers Amplify LA and Wonder Ventures. The firm has accumulated over $6.3 million in total funding to this point.

Currently, Mogul employs six individuals and plans to expand its workforce with the new funding.

Andrew Kahn, managing partner at Yamaha Music Innovations Fund, believes that the team behind Mogul possesses the necessary credentials and experience to deliver products that enhance artists’ career management. He pointed out that Mogul’s advantage comes from its data infrastructure.

“We are convinced that Mogul has developed the most exhaustive first-party data pipeline available for those earning residual income,” Kahn stated in an email to TechCrunch. “Most companies in this field claim robust coverage, yet in reality, their connections to payers are limited. Thus, Mogul can be relied upon for its accuracy and efficiency.”

Since Mogul’s launch last year, its offerings have progressed. Initially, it provided users with only a list of suggestions for improving catalog management, but the company now includes more actionable insights, such as enhanced list formats and cross-platform data corrections in certain scenarios.

“For instance, Sound Exchange is an organization that collects royalties for digital performances when your music is played on Sirius XM,” Ponchick explained. “If you’ve linked your Sound Exchange, we’ll indicate that we’ve noticed you distributed these songs through Distrokid to Spotify, and half of them are unaccounted for in your Sound Exchange.”

He emphasized that if any information is absent, the tool can prompt the user and then assist in completing the registration. Additionally, the company has introduced a bulk registration tool to input data in large volumes. Ponchick remarked that users typically experience a 20% increase in their royalty earnings by utilizing Mogul.

The company has also launched a catalog valuation tool that estimates an artist’s catalog worth across both recording and publishing. This tool details valuations by individual tracks and income sources like Spotify and Apple Music. According to Ponchick, the main objective is to assist artists in managing and monetizing their catalogs more effectively.

Previously, the company offered a free tier, but Ponchick explained that it was not viable for the startup to provide automation tools at that level, stating that many newly-started musicians who earned minimal royalties were using it, and over time, Mogul became less valuable to them. To enhance value for artists, the company discontinued its free tiers.

The platform is also contemplating how to address the complexities of tracking royalties for AI-generated music. Ponchick mentioned that performing rights organizations permit the registration of music partially generated with AI, but completely AI-generated music may encounter challenges on some platforms. Kahn from the Yamaha Music Innovations Fund noted that tracking AI music will introduce difficulties such as high volume diversity, unclear ownership, and disputes over attribution in royalty tracking.

“The existing infrastructure was designed for a human creator ecosystem. High volume, probabilistic authorship may complicate tracking, allocating, and defending claims to Intellectual Property and royalties,” he remarked.

Mogul is currently adopting a wait-and-see approach as the regulatory situation evolves. Ponchick indicated that regardless, the company is favorably positioned to track royalties for any type of tracks.

Mogul is competing against other platforms in the space, such as Notes.fm and Claimity. Additionally, structural changes are underway. In 2024, the U.S. performing rights organization AllTrack introduced a new division that allows creators to collect both performance and mechanical royalties from a single source.