Salt, the company behind the next-generation back-office SaaS platform, which maximises digital and traditional music royalty processing and distribution, has signed a 10-year deal with BumaStemra, the Dutch music society representing the interests of music authors and publishers.

As part of its growth strategy, Salt has also announced the acquisition of Session, which owns the leading application that supports music creators from idea to release. Session streamlines the songwriting process, assigns creator credits, and shares music releases with the downstream industry including all data necessary to ensure that music creators get credited and paid for their work.

These two major deals represent a significant milestone in Salt's ongoing efforts to modernise the music industry. Session provides a seamless way for creators to manage their music credits and song rights; the Salt platform enables music societies to maximise the revenue potential of rightsholders, through fully automated royalty collection, supporting accurate, fast and more frequent payouts, as well as total transparency.

Björn Ulvaeus, legendary member of ABBA and co-founder of Session alongside Max Martin and Niclas Molinder, will join Robert Ashcroft, former Chief Executive of PRS for Music, and Roger Faxon, previously Chief Executive of EMI, on Salt’s board. Ulvaeus brings his unrivaled experience in the music industry and his deep understanding of the challenges faced by creators and music societies to the Salt team. "I am delighted to join the board of Salt and to work with this prestigious team to bring the transparency and accuracy to the industry that we have all waited so long to achieve," said Ulvaeus.

The combination of Salt's digital-era approach to royalty processing, coupled with Session's creator-centric tools, offers a unique opportunity to bring creator credits and fast, reliable royalty payments up to speed with the real-time digital era. Together, these capabilities aim to bring about a new generation of fair recognition and compensation for all music creators and rightsholders, eliminating ‘black boxes’ of unclaimed or unallocated royalties.

Bernard Kobes, BumaStemra’s CEO commented: “BumaStemra’s ambition is to be at the forefront of modern music royalty collections and to provide our members with the best possible service. The long-term partnership with Salt enables us to achieve that goal and positions our members at the forefront of industry innovation and monetisation. Salt’s advanced capabilities, designed in collaboration with BumaStemra’s experts, allows us to automate and streamline our processes, maximise monetisation, and provide much greater transparency. Our members continuously seek faster, more accurate, more regular and transparent income. Salt enables us to provide exactly that”.

"We are thrilled to announce these major deals with BumaStemra and Session," said Doug Imrie, Chief Executive of Salt. "These partnerships will enable Salt to press ahead with innovation and provide our users, and their members, with the most comprehensive and efficient music rights management solution in the market. We look forward to continuing to lead the way in the music industry's long-awaited and inevitable transformation."