Black-Owned Platform Mozaic Raises $20M To Help Creatives Get Paid For Collaborative Projects
Black-owned fintech startup Mozaic has raised a $20 million Series A round to make it easier for creators to split payments with each other and get paid for their work.
Helping creators get paid
Marcus Cobb, CEO, and Rachel Knepp, SVP of Growth, founded Mozaic (previously Jammber) in 2015.
The platform initially aimed to make it easy to handle different parts of the music business from your mobile phone – from songwriting credits and rights to ticketing and touring.
However, Mozaic decided to pivot away from the B2B side of music-making towards a collaborative payment product during the pandemic.
Music-making is a hugely collaborative process. Cobb told TechCrunch that while several creatives may collaborate to make a song, only the creator gets paid immediately.
The creator then has to distribute the money, but this process is often complicated, with no set rules about who should get what. Mozaic aims to streamline this process.
The Chicago- and Nashville-based platform now reaches creators worldwide, making collaborating with and paying creators anywhere and at scale easy.
How Does Mozaic Work?
Mozaic offers a next-generation mobile-first way to split payments, build smart contracts, and pay people fast and cheaply in hundreds of countries and currencies.
The core product is its API, which can easily plug into platforms such as Spotify, YouTube, Twitch, and other custom solutions.
Mozaic has JSON-based intelligent contracts, which automatically send payments to different collaborators based on the rules of the project.
Artists directly receive payments and reports about different projects on the platform.
Available in English, Spanish, and French, Mozaic offers payment options in 135 global currencies in more than 199 countries.
Their API has been used by Jason Hadshain’s Made By Us Music and Creative Space and Events, who has worked with artists like 50 Cent, P Diddy, The Clipse, and Rihanna.
The $20M Series A
The company has now raised a $20 million Series A round of funding from Volition Capital.
While Mozaic has worked with the music industry a lot, it has plans to work with creators ranging from YouTubers to Twitch streamers and newsletter writers.
To make it easier for creators to split payments, the company is launching a Chrome extension and a mobile app in an invite-only mode in January, with plans to make it available to all creators in 2024.
“What I’m personally most excited about is a Chrome extension that allows you to add splits to anything,” Cobb said.
“That Chrome extension will work on YouTube, on Etsy, on Spotify, and on GitHub. And it’s as easy as tagging your friends on the product pages.”
The platform is also working on a website for businesses for better reporting and split revenues or affiliate sales.
