By 2016, there was no longer any doubt: the global recorded music market was on a definitive, long-term upswing. Global revenues climbed 5.9% to $15.7 billion, driven by a massive 60.4% explosion in streaming revenues. Paid streaming subscribers worldwide officially cleared the 112 million mark.
The digital map was also expanding into massive new territories. In China, the launch of Tencent Music in 2016 signaled the birth of a brand-new digital playground that would fundamentally transform music consumption across Asia.
For Believe, this steady economic recovery meant it was time to deploy capital from its recent $60 million funding round. Having already mastered the technology of scale and high-volume distribution, the company set its sights on a deeper, more creative frontier: building an artistic soul. To accelerate this transition, Believe made a major statement in August 2016 by acquiring the legendary, eclectic French independent label naïve.
Founded in 1998, Naïve was celebrated for an incredibly diverse, boundary-pushing roster that spanned electronic music, pop, jazz, and classical masterworks, launching or developing projects for artists like M83, Mirwais, Marianne Faithfull, and Pink Martini. After falling into financial receivership following a bumpy decade, Naïve found a lifeline in Believe. At the time of the deal, Believe made its intentions perfectly clear:
“Believe will put its expertise in the digital business, its global presence in 30 countries, its physical and digital distribution network, and its investment capacity at the service of Naïve with full respect to the editorial line that made the success of Naïve: musical diversity, non-conformity, artists with powerful universes, close relationship to the artists and transparency.“
Injecting Artistic Soul Into Tech
At the time, I said, ‘Believe is too digital. It’s too tech. We need our own editorial imprints. We need artists. We need to A&R this. And to A&R this, artists have to feel they are just not in a digital company, that they are in a record company.
Henri Jamet
Managing Director, France
The acquisition of Naïve, alongside Italian distributor Made In Eataly that same year, marked a massive positioning shift for Believe. Up until this point, the industry largely viewed Believe as a highly efficient tech company, a digital pipe. To truly stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the world’s great music brands, Believe needed to prove it could actively scout, sign, and develop artists from scratch.
Henri Jamet, Managing Director France at Believe, recognized that technology alone couldn’t build a creative culture. He pushed the company to build dedicated, genre-specific editorial imprints under the “AllPoints” umbrella, allowing artists to feel like they were signing to a music company, not a software platform.
“At the time, I said, ‘Believe is too digital. It’s too tech. We need our own editorial imprints. We need artists. We need to A&R this. And to A&R this, artists have to feel they are just not in a digital company, that they are in a record company.’ That’s why I pushed to create organic imprints, as we did with AllPoints, Animal63, Naïve, and so on,” recalls Henri Jamet.
Owning the applause
When we had several successes across multiple genres, it showed the whole industry that we were not only a distributor, but a proper record company.
Henri Jamet
Managing Director, France
Moving heavily into the label business wasn’t just about changing prestige; it fundamentally altered Believe’s commercial upside. When a company only handles the background distribution for a third-party label, it doesn’t own the equity or the historical narrative of that success. By transitioning into a full-fledged record company that signs talent directly, Believe could claim its own victories.
“If you only distribute an artist that is successful, you don’t own the success – the original label owns it,” Jamet argues. “If you’re only distributing an artist, you cannot say, ‘I did this.’ When you have success with an artist you have signed, who you have developed from zero to 100 yourself, that is important.“
By breaking hits across entirely different genres, Believe permanently established its corporate reputation in the marketplace.
“When we had several successes across multiple genres, it showed the whole industry that we were not only a distributor, but a proper record company,” Henri Jamet notes.
The Global Niche Strategy
There are a few market segments where there are not local market. You sign up artists, and then [their] territory of origin represents less than 20% or 30% of [their] revenues. Most of the revenues are international for these segments.
Denis Ladegaillerie
Founder & CEO, Believe.
The Naïve acquisition also laid down the exact corporate blueprint Believe would use to expand its international footprint over the next decade. Instead of trying to buy up mainstream, hyper-localized pop labels, Believe focused on what founder Denis Ladegaillerie calls “international niche labels.”
“It’s really about acquiring capabilities that we don’t have,” Denis Ladegaillerie explains. “This is what we call international niche labels.“
These niche genres such as electronic music, alternative rock, and heavy metal possess a unique economic superpower in the streaming era: their audiences are entirely borderless. A specialized metal or electronic artist might find that their home country only accounts for a tiny fraction of their listener base, while the remaining 80% is scattered globally across streaming playlists.
“There are a few market segments where there are not local markets,” Denis Ladegaillerie says. “You sign up artists, and then the territory of origin of the artist represents less than 20% or 30% of the revenues of the artists. Most of the revenues are international for these segments. That’s why we’re also looking at acquisitions in these specific market segments.”
By integrating Naïve’s prestigious catalogue into Believe’s global digital network, the company proved it could breathe new commercial life into legacy art.
“In the last five years, we acquired a lot of shares in independent labels and are now integrating them”, Henri Jamet explains, noting how this 2016 framework paved the way for future major partnerships with global style leaders like Tôt ou Tard and Nuclear Blast.
Turning data into a creative compass
As Believe rapidly scaled its label operations, handling this massive influx of global music required an entirely new approach to information. In 2016, the company launched DataMusic, a specialized analytics platform engineered to hand deep backend insights directly back to artists and labels.
This wasn’t just a continuation of Believe’s obsession with financial transparency; it was about using data as a daily marketing compass. In the streaming age, knowing exactly who is listening, where they are skipping a track, and which playlist is driving traffic allows an independent artist to make precise, calculated decisions about their next tour stop or video drop. By putting these high-level insights directly into the hands of the creators, Believe proved that data wasn’t a corporate secret to be guarded, but a basic creative right.
By the close of 2016, Believe had brought together another essential element of its operating model. Alongside technology, artist services and global infrastructure, editorial expertise and data had become integral to how the company identified, developed and supported artists in the streaming era.
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Article written by Eamonn Forde. Eamonn Forde is an award-winning music business journalist and author. He writes for The Guardian, Forbes; Music Week, and Music Business Worldwide and several other publications.
