About
Venanzio Giacomelli
Founder & CEO, Sonify Music — Inventor of the Buy-Out in royalty-free music
Venanzio Giacomelli is the founder and CEO of Sonify Music and the inventor of the Buy-Out in royalty-free music. A pianist, composer and DJ — also known as Frank Beret, his stage name on the decks and on social media — and entrepreneur, he combined music and technology to rethink how businesses access music.
Origins: Cugnoli, Abruzzo and the Marchionne family
Born on 18 May 1971 in Cugnoli, a medieval village in the province of Pescara, Italy. That small town holds important roots: his mother is a first cousin of Sergio Marchionne — the legendary CEO who rescued Fiat and Chrysler — son of Concezio and Maria Marchionne, both originally from Cugnoli.
A lifelong love: Giovanna
In Cugnoli he meets Giovanna Perconti when he is 18 and she is 13. A love born as children and grown together for over thirty years — through challenges, successes, losses and rebirths. They move to Pescara in 1998, marry in 2005, and in June 2006 their daughter Sheryl is born. A love that Venanzio himself would describe, in the most heartbreaking moment of his life, as “31 years under a spell.”
Music and technology: the origins (1988)
At 17 he gets his hands on a newly released Korg M1 — the first digital workstation in history, revolutionary and extraordinarily complex to program at the time. While his peers use it as a simple keyboard, he dives deep into its 8-track sequencer, composing complete tracks on his own. In the same years he develops his own music software — one of the very first examples, in the province of Pescara, of a young man writing code to make music. With his group of friends Blue Moon he builds the backing track of Umberto Tozzi’s “Gli altri siamo noi” and wins the Cugnoli Spring Minifestival. A bond that endures to this day: every ten years or so, Blue Moon returns to play at some local festival, always coordinated by Venanzio at the piano and the decks.
DJ years: reading the mood of a crowd
Pianist, composer and DJ — on stage and in clubs he is Frank Beret — he learned to read the mood of a room: knowing when to keep the floor on fire and when to guide it toward something new. Thirty years of experience in understanding what people want, when they want to hear it and how. This sensitivity to the relationship between music, context and people is at the core of Sonify’s curatorial philosophy.
The political years (1994-2000)
In 1994, at the founding of Forza Italia by Silvio Berlusconi, he joins Forza Italia Giovani. Within a few years he holds three positions: Provincial Coordinator of Pescara, Regional Deputy Secretary for Abruzzo and Member of the National Council. He then becomes Regional Coordinator of the Promotori Azzurri, a role created directly by Berlusconi. At national centre-right youth events — including Berlusconi’s famous speech at the Hotel Ergife in Rome — he meets figures such as Giorgia Meloni, then in Alleanza Nazionale Giovani (today Prime Minister of Italy), and Beatrice Lorenzin, then Secretary of Forza Italia Giovani in Rome (later Minister of Health in three Italian governments).
Perconti Fashion (2004-2010)
In 2004, together with Giovanna and sisters Raffaella and Francesca Perconti and aunt Annarita, he founds Perconti Fashion — a small maison based in an industrial building in Pianella (Pescara), with all departments: designer, pattern maker, sales office, purchasing office, and a workshop with 15-20 seamstresses. They produce lingerie and swimwear. In 2005 they open three stores in Pescara — Via Piave, Via Palermo and Francavilla al Mare — and also launch a franchising network. From 2010 Venanzio and Giovanna continue on their own.
Datazend and Milan (2017-2023)
Around 2017-2018 he opens a phone-accessories retail store on Corso Umberto in Pescara, giving birth to Datazend. The products land on Amazon and reach significant commercial volumes. The success lets Venanzio and Giovanna move to Milan, in the Porta Venezia district, into the home of the well-known entrepreneur and make-up artist Diego Della Palma. In January 2020 he incorporates Datazend Ltd in the United Kingdom; the company is dissolved in April 2023.
The loss of Giovanna (2021)
On 27 February 2021, Giovanna Perconti passes away at 44, after fighting with extraordinary courage a grade 4 brain glioblastoma. Venanzio’s words, published on social media in those heartbreaking days, remain among the most touching ever written: “We lived 31 years under a spell. No one can imagine how happy we were, we kept it hidden, it was ours alone. I love you more than myself. You are the sun, you are life.”
Sonify Music and the invention of the Buy-Out (2024)
In July 2024 he founds Global Tech Solutions OÜ in Tallinn, Estonia — the company that operates sonifymusic.net — and launches Sonify Music. Above all, he introduces a model that did not exist: the Buy-Out. Before Sonify Music, anyone who wanted to own an original music track had only one path: commissioning it from a producer, with costs ranging from $500 to over $10,000, long timelines and complex processes. The royalty-free market only offered licenses — you pay to use, but you never own. Venanzio Giacomelli is the inventor of the Buy-Out in royalty-free music: for the first time in history, anyone can acquire full ownership of a professional music track, from the catalog, in a few clicks, at an accessible price. Sonify Music operates on sonifymusic.net, based in Tallinn, Estonia, and offers audit-proof royalty-free licenses with playlists curated for every kind of environment — medical practices, spas, hotels, shops, restaurants, content creators — alongside the Buy-Out on every track in the catalog.