Jamen Capital and the label group Merlin finalize their purchase of Curve Royalty Systems

Jamen Capital and Merlin have completed their purchase of the Curve Royalty Systems platform from Virgin Music Group, closing a deal that took effect Tuesday following final approval from the European Commission. The sale establishes Curve as a standalone company under new ownership, separate from Universal Music Group, which had owned it through Virgin Music Group since February 2026.

The sale wasn't optional for UMG. The European Commission cleared UMG's $775 million acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings, Curve's previous owner, only on the condition that Curve be divested to an independent buyer, a requirement meant to stop UMG from gaining access to competitors' commercially sensitive royalty data through a platform it also owned.

Curve's CEO, Richard Leach, will continue leading the business, and said the deal gives the company "the independence, stability and backing we need for the next stage of our development." He thanked the outgoing Downtown team for its support since 2022, adding that "the friendship and mutual respect between our teams remain strong" even as ownership changes. Jamen founder Matt Spetzler said the priority now is to "protect everything that has made the company successful while giving Richard and his team the resources to move faster, innovate and create."

Curve provides royalty processing across recorded music and publishing for clients that include Armada, Defected, Epitaph, Exceleration, Reservoir, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Netflix and BBC/Demon, alongside Virgin Music Group itself, which stays on as a client even after selling the business.

Jamen Capital, founded by Spetzler after his time as a partner and co-head of Europe at Francisco Partners, where he helped lead its roughly $750 million majority acquisition of Kobalt Music Group in 2022, launched an independent-financing platform called Pipeline earlier this year that has already raised more than $200 million. Days later, Pipeline partnered with Merlin to give its member labels access to advances against their digital royalties, a relationship that laid the groundwork for this acquisition. Merlin CEO Charlie Lexton said the deal secures Curve's independence and keeps it "neutral, trusted and closely connected" to the independent labels it serves, continuing a run of moves the label group has made this year to expand what it offers its members.