Linkin Park is now a venture capital fund that operates like a tech start up

Music is less important than business ventures, according to the band

(AFP/STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN)

Linkin Park has sold over 60 million records, become the first rock bank to achieve more than one billion YouTube hits, gained 63 million fans on Facebook and won two Grammy Awards.

But to quote an early hit, it seems that Linkin Park have become tired of what people to expect them to be. The band have hired a 'creative business executive' to turn it from rock bank into venture capital fund that operates like a tech start up, relegating music to a 'supporting role' in their work.

Kiel Berry, who describes himself as a creative business executive, author and culture explorer, met Linkin Park in 2013, by which time it had been reaching fans directly for more than ten years though meet-ups and social media campaigns under the name Machine Shop.

Berry said in a piece for the Harvard Business Review that by 2013, Linkin Park wanted to make a “true paradigm shift” because of falling revenues from album sales and downloads. To do this, they first created an in-house team that operates ‘like a tech startup’.

Machine Shop Ventures was launched in in May after a period of intense research. The fund will invest in early consumer-focused companies that "connect with people".

They've hired staff from other rock ventures to help them: a business development expert who helped launched Gwen Stefani’s fashion lines and a strategy and development expert who worked on Beats by Dre.

So far, the band has invested in Lyft, a peer-to-peer transport Network, Shyp, a mobile app that provides shipping services, Robinhood, a stock trading app, and Blue Bottle Coffee, among others.

"Creating and selling music now plays more of a supporting role in our overall business mix," Berry said.