Adele, the Grammy award-winning artist, has joined the list of music superstars investing in Audoo, a music technology company which helps artists to receive fairer royalty payments.

Sky News has learnt that the British musician and Adam Clayton, the U2 bassist, have injected money into Audoo as part of a £7m funding round.

The pair join Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney and ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus as shareholders in the company.

Changes to Audoo’s share register were filed at Companies House in recent days.

Audoo, which was established by former musician Ryan Edwards, is trying to address the perennial issue of public performance royalties, in order to ensure musicians are rewarded when their work is played in public venues.

Mr Edwards is reported to have been motivated to set up the company after hearing his own music played at football stadia and in bars, without any payment for it.

Estimates suggest that artists lose out on billions of dollars of unaccounted royalties each year.

Follow The World

Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday

Tap to follow

London-based Audoo uses a monitoring device – which it calls an Audio Meter – to recognise songs played in public venues, and which is said to have a 99% success rate.

It has struck what it describes as industry-first partnerships with organisations including the music licensing company PPL/PRS to track and report songs played in public performance locations such as cafes, hair salons, shops and gyms.

“At Audoo, we’re incredibly proud of the continued support we’re receiving as we work to make music royalties fairer and more transparent for artists and rights-holders around the world through our pioneering technology,” Mr Edwards told Sky News in a statement on Friday.

“We have successfully reached £7m in our latest funding round.

“This funding marks a pivotal moment for Audoo as we focus on our growth in North America and across Europe, bringing us closer to our mission of revolutionising the global royalty landscape.”

Sources said the new capital would be used partly to finance Audoo’s growth in the US.

The latest funding round takes the total amount of money raised by the company since its launch to more than $30m.

Mr Edwards has spoken of his desire to establish a major presence in Europe and the US because of their status as the world’s biggest recorded music markets.

Adele’s management company did not respond to an enquiry from Sky News.

The King’s personal fortune has shot up by £30m to put him on par with Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, while the overall number of billionaires in the UK has plummeted, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

The 2025 list, published on Friday, shows the King’s personal wealth grew from £610m to £640m, taking him up 20 places to 258 – level with former prime minister Mr Sunak and his wife.

The number of overall UK billionaires has fallen to 156 from 165 in 2024, marking the biggest drop since the rich list began 37 years ago.

Gopi Hinduja and his family, behind the Indian conglomerate Hinduja Group, topped the list for the fourth year running with £35.3bn.

Meanwhile, founder and chairman of global chemicals company Ineos Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who became part owner of Manchester United last year, dropped from fourth place to seventh after his reported wealth went from £23.5bn to £17.05bn.

Sir Jim’s £6.47bn losses marked the biggest on the list, while Russian-born brothers Igor and Dmitry Bukhman, who built a fortune on mobile games such as Gardenscapes and Fishdom, made the biggest gains with nearly £6.2bn.

New entries included makeup mogul Charlotte Tilbury with £350m and Ellen DeGeneres, who left the US for the Cotswolds last year.

The Sunday Times said the list was one of its toughest to compile due to Donald Trump’s tariffs and the subsequent stock market turbulence, adding many from previous years had dropped off the list and others were no longer eligible having fled Britain after Labour’s non-dom crackdown.

Read more:
Steep rise in equity release – here are pros and cons
How British ‘geeks’ launched one of most lucrative gaming franchises of all time

Overall, the combined wealth of those on the list stood at £772.8bn – down 3% from the last list.

Speaking to Anna Jones on Sky News Breakfast, Rich List compiler Rob Watts highlighted the story of Tom and Phil Beahon, who own sportswear clothing brand Castore which is now worth £1bn, as one of his favourites.

The brothers from Wirral have debuted at joint 345 on the list with an estimated wealth of £350m.

Calling their story “inspiring”, Mr Watts said: “They dreamed of being sportsmen as lads – one of them got onto the books of Tranmere Rovers and the other played cricket for Lancashire, but their sporting careers were over in their early 20s.

“And they say that failure was critical to driving them to create this £1bn sports kit business that you’ll now see being worn by the England cricket team and the England rugby team.”

The top 20:

1. Gopi Hinduja and family – £35.3bn

2. David and Simon Reuben and family – £26.87bn

3. Sir Leonard Blavatnik – £25.73bn

4. Sir James Dyson and family – £20.8bn

5. Idan Ofer – £20.12bn

6. Guy, George, Alannah and Galen Weston and family – £17.75bn

7. Sir Jim Ratcliffe – £17.05bn

8. Lakshmi Mittal and family – £15.44bn

9. John Fredriksen and family – £13.68bn

10. Igor and Dmitry Bukhman – £12.54bn

11. Kirsten and Jorn Rausing – £12.51bn

12. Michael Platt – £12.5bn

13. Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken and Michel de Carvalho – £10.09bn

14. Duke of Westminster and the Grosvenor family – £9.88bn

15. Lord Bamford and family – £9.45bn

16. Denise, John and Peter Coates – £9.44bn

17. Carrie and Francois Perrodo and family – £9.3bn

18. Barnaby and Merlin Swire and family – £9.25bn

19. Marit, Lisbet, Sigrid and Hans Rausing – £9.09bn

20. Alex Gerko – £8.75bn

One of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges has suffered a cyber attack that could cost it $400m (£301m).

Hackers breached account data of a “small subset” of its customers and then tricked them into sending funds, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor on 11 May, claiming to have information about some customer accounts as well as internal documents.

Money blog: ‘Game-changing’ 100% mortgage launched

The hackers did not gain access to login credentials or passwords, but data including names, addresses and emails were stolen, Coinbase said.

The hackers had paid multiple employees and contractors working in support roles outside the US to collect the information. Everyone involved has been fired, it said.

Coinbase will reimburse all customers who were tricked into sending funds to the attackers – and estimates costs surrounding the hack will total between $180m (£135m) and $400m.

The exchange refused to pay a $20m (£15m) ransom to the hackers and is working with law enforcement agencies. It has also established a $20m reward for information on the attackers.

Coinbase is also opening a new US support hub and taking other measures to prevent cyber attacks, it said.

This development comes just days before Coinbase is set to join the S&P 500 index – in what is expected to be a landmark moment for crypto.

More from Sky News:
Co-op updates on cyber attack recovery
UK economy grows more than expected

Security remains a challenge for the industry and in February, Dubai-based Bybit disclosed a hack which saw around $1.5bn (£1.19bn) of digital tokens stolen – widely dubbed the biggest crypto heist of all time.

“As our nascent industry grows rapidly, it draws the eye of bad actors, who are becoming increasingly sophisticated in the scope of their attacks,” said Nick Jones, founder of crypto firm Zumo.