Jack Dorsey’s Block acquires music-focused financial services startup Hifi

Fintech firm Block sprang a surprise when it acquired music service Tidal in 2021. This week it has made its second acquisition in the space — Hifi. Jack Dorsey, the founder of Block, which used to be Square, has now acquired Hifi, a music-focused fintech startup.

HiFi was launched in the US in 2020. Matt Pincus joined the HiFi board and became an investor in the firm from MUSIC, a joint venture with LinionTree.

HiFi Founder and Chief Executive Officer Damian Manning said on LinkedIn;

I could not be more excited to share that as of today, HiFi is joining Block, furthering our shared purpose of economic empowerment. We’re grateful to our investors, partners, and members for helping us achieve this remarkable milestone. We are thrilled about our future together!

Damian Manning (HiFi) says that Hifi dubs itself a “financial rights organization” and says that he is building innovative services working in concert to financially empower the creator class.”

Launched in 2020, Hifi was all about preserving the financial rights of the artists and was considered an economic, financial rights organization for these artists. All royalty income came through a dashboard that could aggregate big data from all distribution services, including music labels and Performing Rights Organization.

As is well known, many artists have their property stolen or used for free. Cash Flow was born recently as part of the Hifi company, with a royalty acceleration service. This service was founded to pay artists a salary every month.

The second of Block’s investments, Hifi in 2023, follows the music streaming service Tidal, which was purchased in 2021. Block saved Tidal from its financial struggles. However, AP News‘ Chancellor Kathaleen Saint Jude McCormick said that the purchase of Tidal was a bad business decision; however, Tidal is the parent.

The Hifi music-focused fintech startup is also joined by Cash App, the buy-now-pay-later platform Afterpay. This is Block’s premier mobile payment service.

According to Block, “Block Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey and launched its first platform in 2010. It has been traded as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange since November 2015 with the ticker symbol SQ.”