Veeps founder & COO Sherry Saeedi, Blink-182 founding member & lead vocalist Mark Hoppus, and veteran music manager and Lippman Entertainment partner Nick Lippman have launched Verswire.
Fall Out Boy founding member & bassist Pete Wentz is serving as a strategic advisor.
Verswire is a new venture capital music start-up that serves as a development incubator for both emerging and established artists.
“The countless tech solutions that allow artists to make extra money have merely been a bandaid, while no one has fixed the root of the problem: that unfavourable deals do not allow artists to make money or own their music,” said Verswire CEO & founder Sherry Saeedi.
“In witnessing my closest friends put on the back-burner or trapped within the deals they signed while going bankrupt, I didn’t feel like anyone out there was providing the right solution to artists, but rather an iteration of the same archaic business model we’ve seen fail artists time and time again. I decided to build Verswire with an incredible team to re-envision the industry and provide musicians with an alternative that’s truly created with their well-being and careers as the priority.”
Verswire acts as a venture capital fund that tailors artists with custom investment that includes funding, resources, tools, mentoring, support from prominent music executives and an ecosystem to own and operate their businesses, while allowing them to keep majority ownership of their masters.
The company provides primary label services across A&R, distribution, marketing, brand partnerships, sponsorships, publicity and artist development.
Every artist is partnered with a mentor to learn and evolve with, such as Hoppus. They will also get the opportunity to work with top songwriters and producers.
“Dedicated to every act’s long-term growth and success regardless of where they are in their career, Verswire pioneers a new category of building and managing music assets for artist owned businesses,” said a statement.
Saeedi added: “Seeing documentary after documentary about multi-platinum, arena-selling artists coming forward with their experiences of unfavourable label deals, I was tired of hearing the same horror story over and over again: that musicians are struggling to make a dime off their work, while their label partners rake in millions.”
Verswire’s debut signing Beauty School Dropout have just released their brand new single Assassin. The band unveiled an official music video, which features Hoppus, Wentz and Paris Jackson.
“I am very excited to help build a new way for bands and artists to create music for communities, while retaining ownership of their work,” said Mark Hoppus.
“I’ve been a fan of Sherry and the work she’s done for years, and look forward to being part of Verswire’s journey,” added Pete Wentz.
Verswire is comprised of CEO and founder Sherry Saeedi, partner Nick Lippman, partner of A&R Mark Hoppus, director of A&R and branding Myia Ingoldsby, and Pete Wentz as strategic advisor. The founding team also welcomes numerous music veterans as advisors and investors including Kevin Lyman (Warped Tour Founder) and Gus Brandt (Mark Hoppus, Foo Fighters).
“The artist and label relationship needs to be a symbiotic partnership in order to garner absolute success,” said Nick Lippman. “Verswire is the culmination of this ideology and something I’m proud to be a part of.”
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