Last year, we introduced you to Breakr, an influencer marketing platform with $9 million in venture funding – and backing from Nas, Andreessen Horowitz, Marc Benioff, and Slow Ventures.
At the time, US-based Breakr said that its mission was to “democratize music marketing” through its AI-powered technology platform.
Fast-forward to today, Breakr has secured a strategic minority investment from Live Nation Urban, via the latter company’s Black Lily Capital venture fund.
Breakr is also launching BreakrPay, which it describes as “a cutting-edge instant pay system designed to revolutionize the creator economy”.
According to Breakr, this move “enables top labels and dispatch agencies” to use “Breakr’s payments infrastructure and credit facility, providing real-time payments at scale from a central workstation, alleviating the pain of 30-90 day working capital re-payment cycles”.
Breakr claims, that “as a hallmark of [the company’s] vision,” the new BreakrPay tool has “solved one of the biggest challenges in creator marketing,” which it says is “enabling labels and distributors to pay creators and agencies instantly (net-0), with limitless capacity to scale across the industry”.
With BreakrPay now live, and “up to $100 million in annual funding capacity,” the company says it “has fully transitioned into a payments and infrastructure powerhouse for music and its adjacent industries”.
Furthermore, Breakr claims it’s “setting a new standard for how the creator economy operates at scale with major labels and distributors.”
Honing in on the state of the music marketing landscape to explain why it developed BreakrPay, the company says that “trends move at a blistering pace — 48 to 72 hours at most” and that “if labels and distributors don’t act fast, they miss the moment”.
The company adds, however, that “going direct to creators presents a massive payment challenge” because “internally, creators need to be registered as vendors, which triggers layers of paperwork and approvals that slow down execution”.
Breakr continues: “Even once registered, tracking and processing payments creates additional administrative burdens, all while creators expect instant compensation the moment they post. This bottleneck prevents labels and agencies from moving at the speed of culture, especially on weekends or late at night when trends take off.”
The company claims further that its new BreakrPay tool “removes these barriers, allowing labels, distributors, and agencies to pay creators instantly and scale campaigns seamlessly”.
Led by co-CEOs and brothers Tony Brown and Ameer Brown, Atlanta-based Breakr’s core business has focused on providing marketing software and infrastructure for labels and artists to connect directly with influencers since its launch in 2020.
“We built this to empower agencies, brands, and creators with the financial infrastructure they need to move as fast as they create.”
Ameer Brown
The company’s founders have previously explained that their platform’s technology forms “the cornerstone” of its success.
That tech includes an extendable API, geographical targeting for campaigns, “AI-Driven Insights,” and a Patented Wallet System.
The new BreakrPay tool is built on this wallet system, which, Tony and Ameer Brown explain, “functions as a programmatic escrow and limitless credit facility”.
According to Breakr, by “leveraging [its] cutting-edge underwriting technology and Breakr’s proprietary escrow system, BreakrPay advances payments on invoices, allowing agencies and creators to get paid in real-time, rather than waiting on net 30, 60, or 90-day terms”.
“When we first built Breakr, we knew payments were a critical pain point,” says co-CEO Tony Brown. “But as we grew, it became clear that fixing payments wasn’t just a feature — it was the foundation for something bigger.
“Breakr Pay is the future of how agencies and creators get paid, and we’re just getting started. As we stepped out of traditional campaign management, and moved to pure infrastructure, we decided to extend our infrastructure to mission critical agencies as well, which has caused a surge in growth.”
Ameer Brown adds: “The industry moves at the speed of culture, but payments haven’t caught up — until now. Breakr Pay is our answer to the biggest pain point in the creator economy: slow payments.
“We built this to empower agencies, brands, and creators with the financial infrastructure they need to move as fast as they create.”
Breakr’s new partnership with Live Nation Urban and the launch of its new payment tool follow a year (2024) that the company claims was its “strongest yet”.
According to the company’s founders, Breakr saw over 300% YoY revenue growth in 2024, based on what they add, was “a multiple seven-figure base in 2023.”
Breakr’s founders and co-CEOs also tell us that the company saw a significant increase in transactions via its platform last year, and they forecast hitting $150 million in processed transactions within the next two years.
Today, over 85,000 creators are on the Breakr platform, with “hundreds of labels, brands and agencies” using Breakr “to scale campaigns” according to the company’s co-CEOs.
They also say that “multiple billions of impressions” have been generated across music and brand activations facilitated via the Breakr platform to date.
“When we first built Breakr, we knew payments were a critical pain point. But as we grew, it became clear that fixing payments wasn’t just a feature — it was the foundation for something bigger.”
Tony Brown, Breakr
Before launching Breakr, Co-CEO Ameer Brown was a software engineer at Adobe for six years, where he contributed to the growth of graphic design platform Adobe Spark, now Adobe Express, which hit 10 million users in just three years.
Co-CEO, and Ameer’s brother, Tony Brown, meanwhile, spent 10 years in the financial services industry, split between Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Manatt, a management consulting firm that focuses on entertainment and digital health.
Looking to the future, Breakr’s founders say that “by 2026, [they] expect Breakr to be the leading financial infrastructure for creator payments across multiple industries”.
Here, Tony and Ameer Brown explain how they’re working towards achieving that goal, why they partnered with Live Nation Urban, and how their new BreakrPay service works…
Why have you decided to launch BreakrPay now, and what problems were you looking to solve with the platform?
The problem we saw was twofold:
- Labels, brands, and agencies struggle with cash flow. Many operate on 30, 60, or even 90-day net terms, delaying payments to creators and limiting campaign execution speed.
- Creators need financial predictability. They shouldn’t have to wait months for their money or rely on unstable brand invoicing cycles.
BreakrPay solves this by advancing funds instantly upon campaign approval while providing agencies and brands with structured financing to support their cash flow.
Tell us about the technology underpinning the BreakrPay system.
BreakrPay is built on our Patented Wallet System, which functions as a programmatic escrow and credit facility. The system integrates underwrites invoices in real time, allowing brands and agencies to deploy funds directly into creator wallets upon approval.
Key components include:
- Invoice-Level Underwriting: Brands and agencies can float campaign funds using our financing infrastructure.
- Instant Disbursements: As soon as a creator’s work is approved, funds are instantly available for withdrawal.
- White-Label Capabilities: Agencies, platforms, and brands can integrate BreakrPay into their own infrastructure, allowing them to offer payments under their own brand.
Could you explain how it works in practice day to day?
For brands and agencies:
- They log into Breakr, set campaign budgets, and fund their wallet upfront or use BreakrPay financing to float the funds.
- BreakrPay underwrites the invoice, allowing the campaign to move forward without immediate brand disbursement.
- Upon completion of deliverables, the system automatically verifies approvals and pays creators instantly.
- If financing is used, brands/agencies can repay over 30, 60, or 90-day terms.
For creators:
- They are sent campaign offers via Breakr’s platform.
- Upon selection, they complete content deliverables.
- Once approved, they instantly receive funds in their wallet—no waiting on brand /label/ distributor payouts.
- They can withdraw funds immediately or keep them in their wallet for seamless transactions once content is approved.
The result, creators get paid faster, agencies execute faster, and brands move at the speed of culture.
Last time we spoke, you told us about the role your Patented Wallet System was playing in driving growth for your company. Tell us more about how feedback from your clients using the wallet led to the development of the BreakrPay platform?
Breakr’s Patented Wallet System was initially designed to streamline creator payments, but client feedback showed a larger pain point: liquidity constraints across the entire influencer marketing ecosystem.
From client feedback, we learned:
- Agencies needed working capital to scale without waiting on brand disbursements.
- Brands struggled with cash flow management, often delaying payments to agencies.
- Creators wanted instant payments, not net terms.
BreakrPay was built to remove these bottlenecks by embedding financial services directly into the workflow. We didn’t just optimize payments — we solved the liquidity crisis at scale, allowing labels to pay their favorite agencies, in one centralized workstation, formally removing Breakr from the campaign process, and pushing us squarely into the fintech lane.
Can you share more about what the partnership with Live Nation Urban will entail?
This partnership is about scaling creator-driven marketing across live events. Live Nation
Urban will leverage Breakr’s infrastructure to:
- Power creator-driven marketing campaigns for festivals and live events.
2. Onboard a curated network of influencers who align with Live Nation Urban’s cultural brand.
3. Enable real-time payments for creators, allowing artists and influencers to get paid instantly for their promotional work.
4. Deploy brand budgets faster, ensuring brands can activate creators around major events without operational bottlenecks.
The ultimate goal is to bridge the gap between live events and digital creator influence, making sure creators are integrated into music marketing at scale.
What made Live Nation Urban an appealing company to work with?
Live Nation Urban’s cultural impact is undeniable — they are a powerhouse in hip-hop, R&B, and Black music culture, curating experiences that resonate deeply with artists and fans.
Shawn Gee is a mentor, leader, and cultural force, and it’s been an honor to partner with him at the board level to prepare forBreakr’s scale outside of music.
The synergy between Live Nation Urban and Breakr is clear:
- We both believe in scaling creator engagement at the speed of culture.
- Live Nation Urban’s event-driven model aligns perfectly with Breakr’s ability to deploy creator campaigns in real time at the regional level via our targeting mechanisms.
This partnership is about creating new revenue opportunities for creators while making live events roll outs more digitally integrated at the creator level.
You mentioned that Breakr has “Fully transitioned into a payments and infrastructure company” – At this stage of the company’s trajectory, what are your plans/projections for how Breakr will be positioned in the music industry and wider creator economy in the coming years?
Breakr is no longer just a marketplace — we are the financial backbone of the creator economy.
In the music industry, we will continue to:
- Power creator-driven marketing for major labels and top distributors, enabling them to digitize their operations in one central place, with no financial friction, and removing the administrative burden on their central finance teams.
- Enable instant payments for artist campaigns, allowing labels to move fast on trends without being bottlenecked on invoice management, and allow their agencies to move fast and scale their relationships with them, and have the flexibility to go direct if they are building a stable in-house.
- Expand financing options for agencies, allowing music marketing firms to scale more efficiently, and not be burdened with payment delays that prohibit them from scaling their operations to scale. We are seeing substantial pain relief to go to agencies with our campaign financing programs.
“By 2026, we expect Breakr to be the leading financial infrastructure for creator payments across multiple industries.”
In the broader creator economy, our focus is on:
- Scaling BreakrPay as the default embedded finance solution for influencer agencies.
- Becoming the go-to white-label infrastructure for brands, agencies, labels, and talent brokers.
- Expanding internationally, providing liquidity solutions across global creator markets.
By 2026, we expect Breakr to be the leading financial infrastructure for creator payments across multiple industries.
If there was one thing you could change about the music industry, what would it be and why?
We want to play our part in delivering real-time payments to the creators and the amazing agencies that serve the music industry.
The world is becoming increasingly dependent on creators to move trends, and sounds can take a life of their own on Saturday morning, and lose life by Monday. Being able to have an internal bank that can move as fast as culture empowers labels and distributors to move fast, and not burden their partners, or their internal finance teams in a central view / workstation.
“If the industry truly wants to be creator-friendly, it must pay creators and agencies faster, give them financial independence, and build relationships that extend beyond the transaction.”
Labels and distributors control the cash flow, while creators and agencies wait to get paid. Breakr is giving creators and agencies the ability to have net-48-hour payments at scale via our massive liquidity pool that is set to scale to meet the demands of the entire industry.
It’s first of its kind, and now that the business is 100% in the infrastructure business, the response from agencies has been overwhelmingly positive, and we look forward to partnering with everyone in this industry that drives amazing results.
If the industry truly wants to be creator-friendly, it must pay creators and agencies faster, give them financial independence, and build relationships that extend beyond the transaction. That’s exactly what we enable with BreakrPay.
Music Business Worldwide
