Kobalt Music Group

Founding and early years (2000–2011) Kobalt Music Group was founded in 2000 in New York City by Willard Ahdritz, Johan Ekelund , Torbjörn Sten, with founder Willard Ahdritz, a native of Sweden, taking on the role of CEO. On 1 February 2021, Kobalt sold AWAL and Kobalt Neighboring Rights to Sony Music for $430 million, pending regulatory approval. The deal was completed in May 2021. On 24 July 2022 Kobalt removed its entire catalogue of 700,000 tracks from Facebook and Instagram, two social media networks owned by Meta Platforms in the United States. On 7 September 2022 private equity firm Francisco Partners acquired a controlling stake in Kobalt for an estimated $750 million. In April 2024, the company renewed its commercial office lease for 10,000 sq/Ft at 2 Gansevoort St. in New York City for 10 years. ==Technology==

Kobalt has developed a number of technologies to increase its own efficiency at tracking and collecting royalties. In 2005 the company debuted its Kobalt Portal, an online portal for artists to track and manage their own portfolios. In 2014, Kobalt introduced ProKlaim, a YouTube integration that by 2014 had significantly increased artist revenue on the platform. ProKlaim serves as an "advanced detection platform" by integrating with YouTube's own music detection technology. As of 2015, Kobalt had started describing their backend technology as "KORE." KORE manages rights, and tracks, collects and pay royalties across disparate markets, with the collected data accessible through the Kobalt Portal. ==Divisions==

Kobalt currently has licensing deals with around 8,000 artists and 600 publishing companies, representing a catalogue that totals around 600,000 songs. • Monstercat • MPCA • MPL Communications • National Geographic • Nettwerk • Owsla • Polar Patrol Publishing • San Remo • Secretly Canadian • Songs Music Publishing • Soul Kitchen Music • Ten • Third and Verse ==Awards and nominations==

The following is an incomplete list of awards won by Kobalt Music Group: • 2009: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year • 2010: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year • 2011: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year • 2012: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year • 2013: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year • 2014: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year • 2015: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year • 2016: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year • 2017: Music Week Awards – Publisher of the Year ==Further reading==