{"id":128029,"date":"2022-04-04T19:22:24","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T18:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=128029"},"modified":"2022-04-04T19:22:24","modified_gmt":"2022-04-04T18:22:24","slug":"rob-wells-led-music-tech-startup-orfium-acquires-japan-based-content-company-breaker-inc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/rob-wells-led-music-tech-startup-orfium-acquires-japan-based-content-company-breaker-inc\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Wells-led music tech startup ORFIUM acquires Japan-based content company Breaker INC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ORFIUM, a music tech startup run by Rob Wells, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/rob-wells-exits-universal-music-group\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">former<\/a> global digital head of Universal Music Group,\u00a0has acquired Breaker INC, a Tokyo-based promotional, marketing and content company.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Breaker will become <\/span>ORFIUM Japan<span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and says that it will &#8220;instigate new partnerships&#8221;in the world\u2019s second biggest music market across music, gaming, entertainment and anime.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">      <div class=\"mb-advert__incontent\">      <div class=\"mb-advert mb-advert__tweeny hidden-xs hidden-ms hidden-sm\" data-loaded=\"no\" data-sizes=\"992 1200 1440\" data-name=\"628x90 Sponsor banner #5 (992+1200+1440)\" data-params=\"dfp_sponsor5_628\" id=\"dfp_sponsor5_628\"><\/div>      <div class=\"mb-advert mb-advert__banner mb-advert__banner--inline hidden-xs hidden-sm hidden-md hidden-lg\" data-loaded=\"no\" data-sizes=\"480\" data-name=\"468x60 Sponsor banner #5 (480)\" data-params=\"dfp_sponsor5_468\" id=\"dfp_sponsor5_468\"><\/div>      <div class=\"mb-advert mb-advert__mobile mb-advert__mobile--inline hidden-ms hidden-md hidden-lg\" data-loaded=\"no\" data-sizes=\"320 768\" data-name=\"300x50 Sponsor banner #5 (320+768)\" data-params=\"dfp_sponsor5_300\" id=\"dfp_sponsor5_300\"><\/div>      <\/div>      <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ORFIUM develops technological solutions for the music and entertainment industry (record labels, publishers, CMOs, film companies, rightsholders). <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The company claims that its products &#8220;reinvent&#8221; how technology &#8220;discovers, dissects, and tracks&#8221; audio and visual catalog usage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">      <div class=\"mb-advert__incontent\">      <div class=\"mb-advert mb-advert__spu\" data-loaded=\"no\" data-name=\"300x250 Sponsor MPU #1\" data-params=\"dfp_spu1\" id=\"dfp_spu1\"><\/div>      <\/div>      <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Headquarters in Los Angeles and London ORFIUM also has an R&amp;D team in Athens, Greece.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Breaker was founded in 2013 by Alan Swarts, formerly Vice President at MTV\/Viacom in Japan, and John Possman, Co-Founder of DFR Asia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">      <div class=\"mb-advert__incontent\">      <div class=\"mb-advert mb-advert__spu\" data-loaded=\"no\" data-name=\"300x250 Sponsor MPU #2\" data-params=\"dfp_spu2\" id=\"dfp_spu2\"><\/div>      <\/div>      <\/p>\n<p>Launched as one of the first YouTube-centric companies in Japan, Breaker says that it has since built a global influencer network, produced big budget original content (including YouTube FanFest Japan and a YouTube Originals movie), and managed social media accounts on behalf of media and entertainment companies.<\/p>\n<p>Breaker&#8217;s board of directors includes Shigeo Maruyama, ex-CEO of Sony Music Japan as well as ex-Chairman of Sony Computer Networks.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>&#8220;We expect ORFIUM\u2019s technology to deliver significant increases in revenue for Japanese creators and rights holders, much like ORFIUM already does for its partners around the world.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\"><strong>Alan Swarts, Breaker<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Alan Swarts, CEO of Breaker<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, said: \u201cWhether it&#8217;s influencer marketing or social media management or content production, Breaker&#8217;s mission has always been to be of service to creators and rights holders in monetizing their intellectual property.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;Breaker is excited to continue with this mission and to expand our capabilities by bringing ORFIUM&#8217;s world class rights management technology to the Japanese market.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;We expect ORFIUM\u2019s technology to deliver significant increases in revenue for Japanese creators and rights holders, much like ORFIUM already does for its partners around the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>&#8220;Japan is the second biggest music market on the planet with local uniqueness and incredible domestic content and talent.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\"><strong>Rob Wells, ORFIUM<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Rob Wells, CEO of ORFIUM<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, added: \u201cI am delighted to be bringing Alan and his team into the ORFIUM organisation. He has done a sensational job with Breaker and we are looking forward to supercharging his future efforts with our technology. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;Japan is the second biggest music market on the planet with local uniqueness and incredible domestic content and talent. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;I look forward to working with music companies, studios and domestic Japanese creators to bring more value from the digital ecosystem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Breaker&#8217;s board of directors includes Shigeo Maruyama, ex-CEO of Sony Music Japan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":8726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}