ONErpm's GLOBAL GAMBIT

Among the major players in the rapidly expanding music-services game, ONErpm is one of the few with an established global infrastructure and full marketing team.

Founder and CEO Emmanuel Zunz launched the company in Brazil in 2010, well before DSPs had a presence in the region. His early instincts are paying dividends now.

Over the last decade ONErpm has fine-tuned the way it collaborates with artists. Its groundbreaking work in the Brazilian market, including YouTube monetization and an MCN (multichannel network)—it currently operates YouTube’s sixth-largest MCN—paved the way for its LATAM footprint and global expansion.

“In some markets, we have a bigger infrastructure than major labels,” Zunz tells HITS. “We started out with a small team early on in each market, which allowed organic growth—we scaled naturally without having to take on any investment.”

Between 2015 and 2020 ONErpm opened offices in Nashville, Mexico, Columbia, Chile and Argentina. In 2019, Zunz pivoted to focus on the U.S. market; the company now has hubs in L.A., New York, Miami, Atlanta, San Francisco and Charlottesville, Virginia, in addition to Music City. Since 2020, the company has opened offices in 20+ additional markets.

ONErpm works—selectively—with artists at all stages of their careers. Among the frontline acts who've recently signed on are alternative artists The Voidz (Julian Casablancas), Nightly, Chance Peña and Frenship; Latin acts Cosculluela, Alejo and Ana Barbara; country performers Trace Adkins, Struggle Jennings and Justin Champagne; and pop and hip-hop talent like Wifisfuneral, Olivia O’Brien, Jordi, Yelawolf and Paul Wall.

In the U.S., the company has achieved success with Peña, taking his Spotify monthly listeners from 600,000 to 6 million; Alejo, who, since joining ONErpm in 2020, has scored two singles north of 50m global streams; Jordi, who recently dropped “Just a Friend,” which generated 50k pre-saves and 2m streams, and can claim 10m+ TikTok followers; Yelawolf, who has a platinum single; and Jennings and Champagne, each of who has a gold single to his credit.

Meanwhile, ONErpm is a market leader in Turkey, Jamaica and Chile as well as Brazil and has seen a rise in activity in Nigeria. Nigerian 1da Banton’s “No Wahala" was featured on Ted Lasso and has generated half a million TikTok creations, and Banton's countryman KCEE’s “Ojapiano” exploded with 2m TikTok clips over summer. Asia is also key to the company's plans for world domination.

What’s next? According to Zunz, the company is aiming to double its revenue over the next few years while making major changes to its service offerings, shifting DIY operations to its new platform Offstep and launching Enterprise, which will allow ONErpm to focus purely on premium-level offerings.

Pictured: ONErpm founder/CEO Zunz
Rotating: ONErpm artists Peña (in white), Nightly (the trio), Jordi (in pink) and Alejo (in eyewear)