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NEW YORK, NY – April 8, 2026: Secretly Distribution has announced its acquisition of Babel Ops, the technology firm responsible for Entertainment Intelligence as well as bespoke data and analytics tools for myriad music business clients in the independent sector.
Entertainment Intelligence (Ei), a Techstars alum, was founded in 2014 by music executive Erik Gilbert and IT leader Greg Delaney, who went on to found Babel Ops together in 2020.
Today, Enterlytics by Ei powers reporting for over 1.2mm artists across over 55,000 labels, empowering independent music businesses with both up-to-the-minute data visibility and in-depth analytics.
Gilbert and Delaney, along with Babel Ops General Manager Phil Birch and Lead Developer Ryan Berry, lead a team of ten developers in building bespoke solutions for music businesses dealing with large data sets, whether supporting catalog management, data analysis, royalty processing, or similar functions.
Babel Ops has enjoyed a long relationship building systems for Secretly Distribution, including creating its bespoke repertoire management system RIOT alongside SD Head of Digital Operations, Kristian Downs. In addition to SD, Ei also counts Partisan Records, Reservoir Media, Secret City, MNRK, Exceleration, and other key independent sector labels and other businesses among its clients. Beyond Secretly, Babel Ops counts Cargo Independent Distribution and Concord among its development clients.
Under SD's ownership, Babel Ops will continue to create solutions for these and other independent music businesses. Joining them under the new arrangement will be longtime Secretly database administrators Ember Wyrdt and Reggie Provine, who have already worked closely with Babel Ops on several development projects.
"We believe independence is something you actively build and protect, not something you inherit. Babel Ops and Ei were created to give independent music companies the technological strength to operate, grow, and innovate on their own terms, especially as the industry consolidates.
"What drew us to Secretly is a genuinely shared ethos: a belief that independence should be supported and strengthened, not absorbed into dominant systems. They're not just a partner, but a kindred spirit and a natural extension of what we've been building. At a time when fewer companies control more of the infrastructure, there is no better partner to help ensure independents have the tools to compete."
–Greg Delaney and Erik Gilbert, Founders, Babel Ops
"The music industry is moving into a new era of market concentration and algorithmic control. Now, more than ever, if you want to stay independent — and help others stay independent — you must vigorously protect your ability to do business on your own terms, according to your values. It's not enough to safeguard independent routes to market; you must have access to market-leading technology that enables you to compete against the largest companies.
At Secretly, we've long admired the team behind Babel Ops and Entertainment Intelligence, and we share their commitment to providing small and medium-sized companies with world-class analytics and other tools. We are proud to have these two companies as part of the Secretly ecosystem, not only so they can support our business, but also so that they can deliver world-class work for our peers and competitors.
We believe that the best way to secure our own independence is to support the independence of others."
–Darius Van Arman, CEO, Secretly Distribution
"Babel Ops has data at its core. Our goal has always been to build on the wealth of data available to artists and rightsholders, creating tools intended to secure the present, but with an eye on the future.
Like SD, Babel Ops is built to enable independents to challenge the mainstream. In our case, it's by creating technology tools that sets our clients on a level playing field with anyone in the industry when it comes to data management and analysis."
–Phil Birch, General Manager, Babel Ops
"Working with the Babel Ops to build the [client] portal has been a really positive step. It gives our labels a far more transparent view of their physical releases through a live data feed with hourly updates, offering a level of visibility that simply hasn't been available to labels before."
–Jolan Bangina, Head of Operations, Cargo Independent Distribution
"Babel Ops have been a key partner in building, maintaining, and evolving two of our critical sourceofrecord systems during a time of rapid growth at Concord. We see them as an extension of our team and look forward to continuing to build great products together."
–Jackson Mercer, VP Platform Operations, Concord
Gilbert, formerly in executive leadership at Essential Music & Marketing/Cooking Vinyl and pioneering digital distributor IODA, started in the music industry as a music publisher and independent record label founder.
Delaney founded the groundbreaking Business Transport Resources in 2001, laying the groundwork for online transportation booking technology to come; he later cofounded and was CTO of CrowdSurge, the fanclub ticketing service eventually acquired by Ticketmaster.
Babel Ops General Manager Phil Birch joined in 2022, coming from decades in ecommerce, digital marketing, and digital distribution operations, providing him with an incisive understanding of the challenges facing labels and artists in an increasingly fast-paced, big data-focused industry.
Having grown up within a family-owned music venue and record stores, later working in distribution and founding an independent record label, Babel Ops Lead Developer Ryan Berry's brings this deep industry knowledge to his technical expertise in creating solutions for Babel Ops and its clients.
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