The Australian serial entrepreneur is expanding to the UK market and says NFTs are a fan’s greatest asset. 

Max Shand is ensconced in his Manhattan hotel room en route to London. Since founding Serenade, his music non-fungible token marketplace in July 2020, the United Kingdom has emerged as the company’s strongest market, and Shand has decided to move to its capital to focus on growth.

"One of our greatest opportunities right now is that we've been approved in the UK by the Official Charts Company (OCC) to be the first chart accredited NFT platform,” he said. “This means that artists will be able to produce singles, EPs and albums on Serenade and have them feed directly into artist chart placing.”

Serenade’s expansion plans have been further accelerated by a $4.2 million funding round in March. Investors include Dan Rosen, president of Australasia for Warner Music Group; Damian Christian, director of promotions at Atlantic Records; and artist manager Iain Watt, who has been appointed as chair of the company’s advisory board. 

Shand’s journey into music industry is fairly recent. After successful stints in fintech, management consulting and venture capital, he changed course. 

“I had never done anything in the music industry before, but I’ve always been a passionate music lover,” he said. “I started writing for a few niche blogs and journals before getting involved with the operations of a local music station in Sydney. Then the pandemic hit, and live performance came to a standstill.”

Serenade

The economic toll of quarantine made a big impression on him. “I started writing a piece for The Sydney Morning Herald at the time on the effect of the pandemic. I interviewed a bunch of artists who told me that if they didn't play live for a month, they wouldn't be able to make rent. And it just blew my mind the disparity between the financial reality of an artist and how fans see them. I thought, here is my opportunity to have tech as a solution. Could we create something that forges a direct relationship between artists and their fans, and have that directly compensate artists?”

Gathering a small team, Shand built a community platform that helped artists create novel ways to monetize their fan bases. By Christmas 2020, the community had grown to 200 artists. The final piece of the puzzle came when Shand discovered what NFTs can do for musicians.

“It just crystalized that this was a technical solution that solved my existing artists’ dilemma,” he said. “So we started to build a new platform that could enable artists to generate new revenue streams through deeper fan experiences using NFTs. We saw Serenade as an enabler towards a fair and honest outcome.

”Read more: Music NFTs Become Latest Battleground Between Capitalists and Creators

Serenade has also received chart accreditation with the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). The US equivalent is Billboard, which Shand acknowledges will take longer to realize. Even so, he knows that being the first chart accredited music NFT marketplace with presence in both Australia and the UK puts the company in a good position to expand to the U.S. 

While many in web3 are interested in cutting out middlemen like record labels, Shand sees a role for them.

“I believe NFTs are an enabler for record labels, not a disrupter,” he said. “We did see fear and confusion early on in the NFT boom around the role that labels will play. But they recognize that they hold the master recordings and that a big part of the long tail of NFT adoption will be through the music and through the people who market the music. I see labels as being the group of people who can collaborate in tandem with artists to create great stuff that resonates with fans.”

Another reason for Shand to be in New York is that he’s speaking at NFT NYC that same week. As he sipped his coffee, I asked him where he sees NFTs going in the midst of so much volatility in crypto markets.  

“I don't have a thought on where I want NFTs to go,” he said. “I have a thought on where I want the artist-fan relationship to go. And I want I want fans to feel like there are no barriers to them connecting meaningfully with an artist. I think that fans can be empowered to be creators on behalf of artists, and to be collaborators with artists. For fans and artists to enter into more of a mutually beneficial relationship where both have a lot to gain and learn from each other. I believe wholeheartedly in the use of NFTS as a way to communicate passion and identity online. This is the type of business that we want to scale.”