One week after closing an $8 million funding round, Stem — a Los Angeles-based startup that helps musicians and online creators collect and share revenues across a plethora of distribution platforms — has announced two key hires.
Jeremy Lewis (pictured above) has been named to artist relations, video, and will be tasked with recruiting more YouTube creators to join Stem’s platform, while Jason Zerden has joined the company as agency liaison in the artist relations department.
“As a creator himself, Jeremy had firsthand experience with the pain points we are solving and a point of view on how to spread our value proposition to video creators,” Stem’s co-founder and CEO Milana Rabkin tells Tubefilter. “We hired Jason to help us strengthen our relationships with talent agencies, and to educate them on how to utilize Stem as a tool to enable their clients to create more freely.”
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Stem furnishes technology that helps creators optimize video metadata and maintain digital rights across YouTube and other platforms. In addition to managing rights, Stem also digitally divvies up complex royalty splits in order to pay the numerous collaborators on a video their fair share. Though the company is currently in an invite-only private beta, Stem has worked with bold-faced influencers like Madilyn Bailey and Trevor Moran. It collaborated with the latter on Get Me Through The Night (below) alongside Moran’s multi-channel network AwesomenessTV.
“I can’t tell you how often I come across a YouTube channel with millions — sometimes billions — of views, where the uploader has provided incomplete or incorrect metadata, resulting in a missed opportunity to monetize or be accurately credited for RIAA certification,” Lewis said. “Using Stem takes the pressure off creators and collaborators, ensuring they are accurately credited and paid for their content.”
Lewis is a digital marketing executive who founded the social media consultancy Platobrand and has worked on content campaigns for the likes of BuzzFeed, Mashable, People, HuffPost, and more. Zerden, who started his career at leading ad agency McCann, most recently served in Creative Artists Agency’s global client strategy group, where he worked with clients like Scooter Braun, will.i.am, The Black Eyed Peas, Ariana Grande, Apple, and Pepsi.
One-year-old Stem, which has worked with buzzy musicians like Frank Ocean and Childish Gambino, now counts a total of 28 employees.
