Sony Music Group is forming a music rights-buying joint venture with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC Pte.

Bloomberg reports that GIC and Sony plan to invest $2 billion to $3 billion in the venture.

According to Bloomberg, Sony and GIC plan to pursue “high-quality, marquee music assets across a range of genres”.

“As a long-term investor, GIC seeks to be a creative and flexible capital partner to strategic industry leaders like Sony,” Girish Karira, head of the sovereign fund’s integrated strategies group, said in a statement.

“Partnering with GIC brings together long-term capital and Sony Music Group’s operational capabilities to acquire and manage premier catalogs, creating new opportunities for artists’ and songwriters’ music globally.”

Kevin Kelleher, Sony Music

“Partnering with GIC brings together long-term capital and Sony Music Group’s operational capabilities to acquire and manage premier catalogs, creating new opportunities for artists’ and songwriters’ music globally,” Kevin Kelleher, Sony Music’s Chief Operating officer, is quoted as saying in a statement.

Sony Music Group Chairman and CEO Rob Stringer revealed last June that the company had spent $2.5 billion on over 60 deals in the past year.

Speaking during Sony Group’s 2025 Business Segment Presentation for investors,  Stringer said that the music company “completed more than 60 investments in the past year alone” and spent “over $2.5 billion for frontline, catalog, as well as creative and service ventures with outside entrepreneurs across a vast number of territories”.

The company’s acquisitions have included the catalogs of iconic artists like Queen and Pink Floyd.

Meanwhile, Sony isn’t the only major music company to team up with deep-pocketed financial players to establish billion-dollar-plus funds to buy music rights.

In July last year, Warner Music Group and private investment giant Bain Capital unveiled their plans for a $1.2 billion music rights-buying joint venture.

In February 2024, Universal Music Group acquired a minority stake in Chord Music Partners, a platform established by investment giant KKR with Dundee Partners, for USD $240 million.

Subsequent to partnering with UMG, Chord raised over USD $2 billion in investable capital to buy music rights, according to MBW sources close to the company.Music Business Worldwide

It has plenty of money to make that happen: The company beat Q4 expectations, delivering $59.89 billion in revenue, compared to consensus analyst estimates of $58.41 billion. Earnings per share came in at $8.88 ,versus expectations for $8.19.

And the company made clear spending will continue to be massive. Meta forecast its capital expenditures could rise to as much as $135 billion this year, nearly double the $72 billion it reported in 2025, as it unveiled its most radical AI spending plans to date, largely driven by increased investment in AI infrastructure costs and talent. 

In comments on the earnings call, Zuckerberg harked back to last summer, when he rebuilt the foundations of Meta’s AI program, bringing in Scale CEO Alexandr Wang to head up Meta Superintelligence Labs. 

Over the coming months, he said, Meta would start shipping AI models and products. “I expect our first models will be good, but more importantly, they will show the rapid trajectory that we’re on,” he said. “And then I expect us to steadily push the frontier over the course of the year, as we continue to release new models.” 

The goal? Zuckerberg again made clear that it is “personal superintelligence.”

“We’re starting to see the promise of AI that understands our personal context, including our history, our history, our interests, our content and our relationships,” he said. “A lot of what makes agents valuable is the unique context that they can see, and we believe that Meta will be able to provide a uniquely personal experience.” 

In addition, he said the company is working on merging LLMs with Meta’s recommendation systems on its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Threads. “We think that the current systems are primitive compared to what will be possible soon,” he said. “Soon, we’ll be able to understand people’s unique personal goals and tailor feeds to show each person content that helps them improve their lives in the ways that they want.” 

Zuckerberg also predicted that in the near future, new immersive and interactive formats will be possible only because of AI advances. “Today, our apps feel like algorithms that recommend content,” he said. “Soon, you’ll open our apps and you’ll have an AI that understands you and also happens to be able to show you great content or even generate great personalized content for you.”

Glasses, he said, are “the ultimate incarnation of this vision,” pointing out that sales of Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses more than tripled last year and that investment in the company’s Reality Labs will mostly go towards glasses and wearables. 

The biggest spend, however, will be in infrastructure. He touted the recently announced Meta Compute organization, saying he believed being the most efficient company in building infrastructure for AI will become a strategic advantage. 

Finally, Zuckerberg announced that Meta is investing in AI tools for its workforce, saying the company will elevate individual contributors and flatten teams. “Our north star is building the best place for individuals to make a massive impact,” he said, pointing out that what many big teams at Meta are doing can now be accomplished by “a single, very talented person.”

Loud House and OpenWav have formed a joint venture for artist merchandise and fan engagement.

OpenWav was launched by Wyclef Jean and 88rising’s Jaeson Ma in 2025. Loud House Group was created in 2024 by investment firm Preface Global in partnership with Los Angeles-based Loud House Co-Founders Lauren Wilhelm (ex-Amazon)and Mike Palermo (ex-Junk Food Clothing).

The joint venture combines Loud House’s brand development work with OpenWav’s commerce, data, and fulfillment infrastructure, according to a press release on Wednesday (January 28).

The new project seeks to provide artists and IP owners a way to launch, test and scale consumer products globally without holding inventory.

The platform will support product launches across apparel, wellness, home goods, collectibles, and limited-edition items. OpenWav’s on-demand production model allows brands to manufacture products as orders come in, reducing financial risk.

Loud House launched several artist collaborations in 2025 through its Lost Love brand, focusing on limited-run production and alternative materials to reduce waste.

The joint venture will expand that model, adding centralized infrastructure and data capabilities to support a wide roster of artists.

“By pairing Loud House’s creative and commercial capabilities with OpenWav’s data and infrastructure, we’re giving talent and IP owners a repeatable way to launch, learn, and scale—globally and efficiently.”

Lauren Wilhelm, Loud House

Lauren Wilhelm, Co-Founder and CEO of Loud House, said: “This partnership is about building the operating system for modern fan commerce.”

“By pairing Loud House’s creative and commercial capabilities with OpenWav’s data and infrastructure, we’re giving talent and IP owners a repeatable way to launch, learn, and scale—globally and efficiently.”

Jaeson Ma, Co-Founder and CEO of OpenWav, said: “This joint venture reflects OpenWav’s belief that the future of artist commerce is direct, data-driven, and built for scale.”

“By combining Loud House’s creative vision with OpenWav’s commerce and analytics platform, we’re creating a foundation that allows artists and IP owners to build durable, long-term businesses while maintaining a direct relationship with their fans.”

“This joint venture reflects OpenWav’s belief that the future of artist commerce is direct, data-driven, and built for scale.”

Jaeson Ma, OpenWav

The venture will use first-party fan data to inform product design, pricing and release timing. Artists will access direct-to-fan storefronts that connect to OpenWav’s payment processing and fulfillment networks, allowing them to manage operations through a single backend system for analytics, compliance, and reporting.

The companies said the new platform is designed to serve both established and emerging artists.

Beyond traditional merch, the companies plan to expand into diversified consumer products that don’t require inventory.

The partnership comes over a year after Loud House was launched by investment firm Preface Global in partnership with Los Angeles-based Loud House Co-Founders Lauren Wilhelm (ex-Amazon) and Mike Palermo (ex-Junk Food Clothing).

Meanwhile, OpenWav was founded in June 2025 by Grammy-winning artist Wyclef Jean and Jaeson Ma, co-founder of Asian music collective 88rising.

The Los Angeles-baed startup is backed by creator economy-focused fund Connect Ventures, Warner Music Group, Goodwater Capital, Soma Capital, SuperScrypt, Dragonfly, Galaxy Interactive, and Animoca Brands.