A group of independent record labels has invested £250,000 (approx. USD $334,000) in Cantilever, a curated streaming app for independent music.
The investment completes Cantilever‘s pre-seed funding round.
It came from 20 backers, comprising independent record labels and individual investors from those companies, the company said on Monday (June 8).
The label investors are !K7, Because, City Slang, Domino, Everlasting, Exceleration, Hopeless, Ninja Tune, Partisan, Playground, Secret City, Secretly Group and Sub Pop.
All of the backers are supporters of the Organization for Recorded Culture and Arts (ORCA), and the round came together during an ORCA discussion about the future shape of the independent music landscape.
“our investment in Cantilever can only be seen as a tiny step towards a fair, artist-and-label centric streaming ecosystem. We still have many more steps to go.”
Christof Ellinghaus, City Slang
“Independent labels have very few true partners left in the ecosystem,” said City Slang founder Christof Ellinghaus. “The platforms that make our music available follow their own agenda, which doesn’t always align with the interests of our community.
“When we came across Cantilever, we were thrilled to find a concept that 100% aligns with our values and is driven by heavy curation, fairness and enthusiasm for our artist’s music. That is something that all of us are truly happy to support.
“Still, our investment in Cantilever can only be seen as a tiny step towards a fair, artist-and-label centric streaming ecosystem. We still have many more steps to go.”
Cantilever is a curated streaming service for independent music that features a small number of albums at a time, each paired with articles from music journalists or interviews with the artists.
A new album joins the service every few days and the oldest cycles off, with each release staying for one month, according to Cantilever.
The app is priced at $5.99 per month, with a 14-day free trial.
Cantilever says it pays royalties on a user-centric basis, so a subscriber’s fee only goes toward the artists they actually listen to.
That model differs from the pro-rata system used by Spotify and Apple Music, in which all subscriber revenue is pooled and paid out to rightsholders based on their share of total streams.
Under pro-rata, a portion of a subscriber’s fee can be paid to artists they have never streamed.
SoundCloud was the first to apply a user-centric model in 2021, branding it Fan-Powered Royalties, and TIDAL later adopted the approach for one of its plans.
“Cantilever was built to serve independent record labels and artists, so having over a dozen of the world’s leading independents backing us is the strongest validation we could ask for,” said Cantilever founder Aaron Skates.
“This funding will allow us to make our first hires, improve the user experience and accelerate growth, with partners who have a genuine stake in the company’s success and know exactly who we’re trying to reach.”
“Cantilever was built to serve independent record labels and artists, so having over a dozen of the world’s leading independents backing us is the strongest validation we could ask for.”
Aaron Skates, Cantilever
Skates is a London-based music writer who has worked at independent record labels, and launched the Cantilever service in October 2025 after developing the idea since 2022.
He has described the platform as being like MUBI, Criterion or BFI Player, but for music.
ORCA launched in July 2024 as a think tank established by leading independent labels to research the economic, cultural and social impact of music.
Cantilever joins a number of startups building independent-focused alternatives to the major platforms, among them Insidr Music, a direct-to-fan app.
“Cantilever‘s proposition allows for immersion in the musicians’ art in a way that’s atypical in today’s environment of content overload.”
Patrick Clifton, ORCA
“Cantilever‘s proposition allows for immersion in the musicians’ art in a way that’s atypical in today’s environment of content overload,” said ORCA Executive Director Patrick Clifton.
“ORCA‘s supporters were united in their desire to see it succeed.”Music Business Worldwide
, forming the round during an ORCA discussion on the future of independent music.){kind=link}