Utopia Music launches in Australasia with Rachel Kelly

Switzerland-headquartered music fintech company, Utopia Music, has arrived in Australia.

Utopia is a champion of creator rights and its Fair Pay For Every Play podcast is the keystone of its aim to build “the next-generation infrastructure” for the records business.

The Australian office will be run out of Sydney under Rachel Kelly as its vice president, responsible for Australia, New Zealand and other key Australasian markets.

Kelly was included in Billboard’s International Power Players List in 2019.

Over the past 20 years, Kelly held senior roles at Warner/Chappell, Alberts, BMG Rights Management Australia and Mana Music.

She set up the local operations of New York-based Downtown Music Publishing in February 2018.

As Creative Director and Head of Sync until July 2021, she signed John Butler Trio, Stella Donnelly, The Teskey Brothers (world ex ANZ), Little Quirks, Taka Perry and Eliott.

Kelly reports to Utopia COO Roberto Neri, who said: “We are very excited about Rachel joining us as the first Utopian to be based in Australia.

“Her strong background and values are incredible assets for us to enhance the value of music for the Australasian ecosystem.

“We look forward to expanding to ensure we deliver Fair Pay for Every Play.”

Neri joined Utopia in September, previously EVP of business development at Downtown.

The company also recently added Yvan Boudillet as head of policy, Paul Gathercole as chief data officer, Åsa Carild as head of platform and Paul Stuart as chief legal officer.

In the last few weeks, Utopia Music also made two significant acquisitions.

The first, in September, was the Quincy Jones-backed metadata and AI business, Musimap, that has developed technology to analyse and tag music.

More recently (October 29) it entered the US market by snapping up Nashville-based financial services company, Lyric Financial, which has advanced over $100 million worth of royalties to artists and promises faster payment for creatives.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the Utopia family and expanding its vision of Fair Pay for Every Play to Australasia,” Kelly said.

“The music industry is in need of innovation so it can grow to its full potential.

“But more importantly, that innovation must be created with every industry participant in mind so that we can grow together, and I truly believe Roberto and the whole team at Utopia understand that.”

Kelly is also a founding board member for decentralised technology network MODA DAO which is dedicated to the adoption of Web3 in the music industry, a board member for the Australasian Music Publishers Association and will continue to be a mentor for Women in Music.