Reclaiming its absolute privacy in July 2025, Believe officially exited the public stock market. Valued at a commanding €1.54 billion, the company was once again completely independent, unburdened by short-term shareholder demands and injected with a surge of raw, strategic energy.
Free to take massive structural swings on its own terms, Believe immediately set out to expand its model across new global territories and technical frontiers, aiming to fulfill its ultimate destiny: a unified, all-in-one artist ecosystem.
The digital awakening of the Japanese market
How do you position yourself internationally to be able to support Japanese artist developments outside of Japan? We think our position as the number one player in the region […] allows us to really support acts best because they are often their first export markets.
Denis Ladegaillerie
Founder & CEO, Believe
Believe directed its focus toward Japan, the second-largest recorded music market on the planet. Historically anchored in physical formats, the Japanese music industry remained slow to adopt digital streaming. Where competitors saw a rigid, legacy barrier, Believe recognized the ultimate digital growth playground. Believe launched Label & Artist Solutions in Japan in 2025:
“Japan was still one of the markets that was the least digital,” says Denis Ladegaillerie about the company’s expansion there. “Most of the labels still have an issue around understanding digital and transforming themselves digitally. They are about ten years behind where the US is or Europe is in terms of digital adoption.“
“We are able to position ourselves and accelerate transformation, which is what some of our competitors have not done. We have another competitive advantage in Japan, which is TuneCore. We operate it locally and it is already the third-largest market player in Japan, with a ten per-cent market share there. What we’re doing now is bolting on a higher level of service so that we can better serve and develop our set of TuneCore clients.“
Beyond local transformation, Believe planned to turn Japan into a powerful export engine.
“How do you position yourself internationally to be able to support Japanese artist developments outside of Japan?” asks Denis Ladegaillerie. “We think our position as the number one player in the region, in Indonesia, in Thailand, in the Philippines, in other countries there, allows us to really support acts best because they are often their first export markets.“
To capture this unique cultural landscape, the execution required an intimate, localized touch.
“The Japanese market has its own rules and its own habits, says Romain Becker.We need to understand what the labels and artists want, what they need.“
From grassroots hip-hop to mainstream stardom
Just as it had done a decade earlier to conquer the French market, Believe used the underground power of local hip-hop to establish its presence in Japan. The secret weapon for this strategy was the deep repository of data from TuneCore Japan, which already served as the foundational hub for the country’s urban music scene. To scale these independent creators, Believe launched its specialized imprint, PLAYCODE.
“The reason we launched hip-hop label Playcode in Japan was thanks to TuneCore, “says Sylvain Delange. “The reality is that TuneCore Japan today is, by far, the biggest hip-hop ecosystem in Japan. A large majority of hip-hop artists transit through TuneCore in one way or another, work with TuneCore in one way or another, or collaborate with TuneCore in one way or another.“
The long-term roadmap for the region was simple: upgrade the entire independent infrastructure to give grassroots talent a premium pathway to the mainstream.
“Our ambition is very simple. It’s the same as what we’ve done in France and other markets. We want to be the number one hip-hop artist development company in the country. In Japan, it’s about transforming and maximising the unique position that TuneCore has been building to create a very strong artist development engine to start transforming the industry from the inside. One where it is more digital-friendly, more focused on engaging with audiences, giving more space to up-and-coming genres such as hip-hop. Japan is a big priority,” Sylvain Delange continues.
A unified music publishing ecosystem
Two years after absorbing the administration platform Sentric, Believe officially completed its full-stack vision. In October 2025, the company launched Believe Music Publishing across multiple global territories, pairing its massive audio distribution pipeline with a digital-first approach to tracking and collecting songwriting royalties.
“With digital now being the biggest driver of collections for creators, and the publishing market exceeding €4billion after a decade of double-digit growth, we are uniquely positioned to lead the evolving publishing market, where growth continues to be increasingly driven by digital, with a publishing arm that now matches and complements our leadership in recording, said Denis Ladegaillerie on the launch of this new operational arm.
This launch transformed the company into a comprehensive destination for creators, providing a transparent framework that protects an artist’s earnings across every single revenue stream.
The four principles of creative AI
We are building machine learning on catalogue to understand what catalogue should be promoted when. […] Technology is going to be better than humans, to a large extent, to be able to surface information to humans, to market and promote. It is where the investment is going to go.
Romain Vivien
Global Head of Music & President, Europe
As artificial intelligence began reshaping the music industry, Believe treated the technology as a powerful creative ally. The company integrated automated tech tools into every tier of production, guided by a clear ethical framework based on four unshakeable pillars: Control, Consent, Compensation, and Transparency.
To demonstrate the positive power of these tools, Believe started exploring GenAi video creation, allowing independent artists to rapidly design stunning, cost-effective visual content to re-engage modern audiences.
“We can create GenAI content cheaper and faster to repackage our catalogue content and re-market, promote and expose it to new generations and new audiences”, says Romain Vivien. “We will bring in more value to our content creators, to our artist labels, and to the catalogue.“
Responsible AI in Practice
We are building machine learning on catalogue to understand what catalogue should be promoted when. […] Technology is going to be better than humans, to a large extent, to be able to surface information to humans, to market and promote. It is where the investment is going to go.
Denis Ladegaillerie
Founder & CEO, Believe
While embracing the creative upside of automation, Believe acted as a strict frontline guardian against cyber-fraud. The company deployed solutions to automatically block the distribution of AI-generated tracks partly or fully produced on unlicensed GenAI platforms.
Instead of wasting resources on artificial audio clutter, Believe also funneled its machine-learning power into optimizing real human art, building predictive models to comb through backend data and identify the precise moment a classic catalogue track should be re-promoted to global streaming platforms.
“We are building machine learning on catalogue to understand what catalogue should be promoted when,” Denis Ladegaillerie notes. “That machine learning integrates anniversary dates and events [to make strategic decisions]. Technology is going to be better than humans, to a large extent, to be able to surface information to humans, to market and promote. It is where the investment is going to go.“
By transforming raw global platform data into a localized creative compass, Believe handed its artists a massive competitive advantage.
“We are using data to understand how the local music ecosystems are evolving through time,” says Elsa Bahamonde Bourgain.”Our deep understanding of the content market and retail market locally is also a key element, because it helps us to understand which genres of music are growing ahead of market growth, and which genres of music are working better on which platforms. All this market understanding that is very data-driven also helps us to have better development strategies for our artists.“
As it celebrated two decades of reshaping the music business, Believe stood at the absolute peak of its operational power. Backed by an all-in-one tech stack, a flawless track record across multiple sub-genres, a €1B turnover and complete private independence, the company was primed for its most monumental boundary-crossing leap yet: conquering the United States.
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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.
