Sovereign Capital runs its own academies – in the music industry

I’ve just come across an unusual set-up in the innovation eco-system: a venture capital company that runs its own academies for startups; but would you believe this: one of them is for song writers! It is as though a VC in Bioscience had set up its own entrepreneur school for potential CEOs in synthetic biology.

But why not? Song writing and bioscience used to be callings which had their own very specific origins, but both of which now demand business nous.

What is being taught? Isn’t songwriting something “you’ve either got…or you haven’t”; “they just come to you”, said one successful writer. But the pedagogues at the Institute of Contemporary Music say that popular musicians hide the fact that they have had to study their craft; that there are elements of songcraft (just as there are in creative writing) that can be taught – like where to put in a middle eight or a key change; and individuals can be introduced to writer’s works that speak to their own work. ‘We provide tools and a regime of learning and development – about production, performance and business.’ (See the video ft.com/rockschool.)

Importantly, students are helped to develop their brand and to monetise it – for example by making contacts. When they are ready, they get introduced to potential managers, publishers and labels. There are lots of panels, with guests from the industry – talking about digital marketing, how to analyse data, the demo-graphics of your potential fan base, and of course contracts; and there are regular Master Classes.

“We used social media to find out where people were listening to us, and where our potential market might be going”, said one band that had just organised a tour.

If programmes like this, which provide aspiring musicians with a variety of routes to using their talents in the music industry, are more common than they used to be, the presence of a venture capital group is a great deal less so. Sovereign Capital, ‘the largest and leading provider of contemporary modern music education in the UK and Europe’ (which inter alia owns the British and Irish Modern Music Institute with its branch in Fulham,) is described as a big player in this sector with some notable and much trumpeted success stories to its credit.

The recent Barclays Scaleup Report emphasised the importance of expertise in venture funding. There can be few better ways of developing that expertise than in having an organisation whose essence is the development and commercialisation of talent.

John Whatmore, March 2017