Belong
Financial infrastructure of fandom. Ex-Spotify Global Head of Music + Avicii's manager.
About
Belong is pioneering FanTech by building the financial infrastructure of fandom — the financial layer that turns engagement into identity, access, and economic value. Fans already drive billions in economic activity around the artists they love — across tickets, travel, merchandise, and everyday spending — yet almost none of that value flows back to artists. Belong changes that. We connect fan identity to financial rails, enabling fans to be recognized and rewarded for their participation — while creating a new, recurring revenue stream for artists from the spending that already exists. As the world shifts from the attention economy to the engagement economy, Belong transforms fandom into a measurable, bankable system — where identity drives activity, and activity creates value. Co-founded by Nick Holmsten, former Global Head of Music at Spotify, and Ash Pournouri, who built Avicii into one of the world’s biggest artists.
From their website
belongrewards.com ↗Belong builds financial infrastructure for fandom, turning fan engagement into identity, access, and real economic value. It combines a fan wallet, rewards, and merchant spend to unlock exclusive experiences and drops for fans and artists alike.
Belong offers a user app and a physical Belong Card that together connect artists, fans, and spending. Fans build a FanScore by earning points from watching videos, completing challenges, taking quizzes, and providing feedback. Points can be spent via the Belong Card to unlock drops, tickets, merchandise, raffles, and exclusive experiences. The Belong Passport serves as a verified fan identity that evolves with activity and unlocks status, access, and rewards. The platform positions as a trusted financial infrastructure, partnering with regulated financial institutions to enable the financial services and card issuance.
Who it’s for: Fans and superfans of music artists, artist and label partners seeking direct engagement and monetization from fan interactions.
- FanScore-based engagement tracking
- Points earning from videos, challenges, quizzes, feedback
- Belong Card for point redemption
- Exclusive drops, tickets, merch, raffles
- Artist-fan identity with Belong Passport
- Direct rewarding of real fan relationships
- Financial infrastructure for partner adoption
Hiring/traction mentions inferred from product offering and partnerships; established branding and waitlist for app adoption
Founders · 2
Founder and operator at the intersection of culture, technology, and product. Founder of Tunigo (acquired by Spotify), and former Global Head of Music at Spotify, where I spent seven years helping scale the platform globally—shaping playlists and discovery into core product infrastructure and working with many of the world’s biggest artists and labels.
Ash Pournouri (LL.M., Stockholm University) is a two-time Grammy-nominated serial entrepreneur who pioneered the modern music business, co-writing the majority of Avicii's catalogue and executive-producing all releases while building one of the most recognisable global brands in entertainment. In 2014 he created and co-founded Brilliant Minds with Spotify founder Daniel Ek, a platform that has hosted the likes of Obama, Eric Schmidt, Tom Brady, Usher and Lebron James. Since exiting music in 2016, he has built a portfolio spanning 40+ companies as early active investor, including Convendum, the largest co-working concept in the Nordics, and a founding ownership stake in Antler, the world's largest venture studio. Through UNLTD.co, he forged artist-first partnerships with Ralph Lauren, Coca-Cola, IKEA, and H&M, and played a key architectural role in Triller's growth to 350 million downloads in 24 months. He was founder and GP of both Norrsken Accelerator and Norrsken Launcher, and has created the largest angel network ever in the Nordics with Nordic Angels. Also founded Super Human Network, a longevity and human performance platform anchored by profiles such as Bryan Johnson, Dr David Sinclair, Dave Asprey and partners with XPRIZE. Across music, culture, and human optimization, his operating philosophy has stayed constant: he doesn't discover movements, he creates them.
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