Former Warner Music CEO Joins Web3 Company OneOf’s Board

Warner Music Group’s former CEO, Stepher Cooper, is joining the board of directors at Web3 firm OneOf, the company said Wednesday. OneOf launched as a music non-fungible token-focused marketplace and has grown to also work with athletes and brands such as Snapple.

Cooper, who was CEO of entertainment company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer prior to joining Warner, brings vast experience in the music and entertainment industry and will help develop OneOf’s brand and creator strategy to target new audiences and industries.

Lin Dai, CEO and co-founder of OneOf, told CoinDesk that Cooper joining the board is a “huge endorsement” for OneOf and he will bring expertise that will help forge new partnerships and onboard millions of non-crypto native users to Web3.

“OneOf and many other companies are doing a lot more with [Web3] technology than just PFPs [profile pictures] this year. The work that we are doing with major corporations in banking, travel and entertainment are traditionally noncrypto companies,” Dai told CoinDesk. “Having Steve in helping us and guiding us as well as teaching us how to navigate and have those conversations.”

After raising $63 million in seed funding to build its music-focused NFT platform in May 2021, OneOf has been expanding its reach of partnerships and industries. In November 2021, OneOf signed a three-year partnership with the Grammy Awards to create NFTs for the event. In August, OneOf raised an additional $8.4 million with participation from American Express' venture wing Amex Ventures, which gave credit card holders exclusive access to an event in Turkey.

Dai told CoinDesk a major focus for OneOf was to make the Web3 onboarding experience “super easy,” and significantly reduce both financial and technical barriers that prevent new adoption.

UPDATE (Feb. 15, 22:35): Clarified American Express participated in, but did not lead, August fundraise.

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Cam Thompson

Cam Thompson was a news reporter at CoinDesk.

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