In the previous article, where the music industry discussed the possibility of equity mobilization in the music sector, today we take stock of five major platforms in the global market that are relevant to music mobilization。
Kickstarter: 22% of successful funding for musical crowd-raiser projects, brain holes open
The 100,000 projects that have been successfully funded since the launch, the $2. 2 billion total funding, and the 10 million projects that have been supported by kickstarter are milestones that kickstarter has achieved since it went online, while 22 per cent of the 100,000 projects that have been successfully funded are music-related, which also suggests that kickstarter is still very popular with musicians despite the fact that it already has a platform for music services centred on service fans, pledge music and others。
With regard to the platform, there are currently 446,000 music-grouping projects that have yet to succeed and are being funded. According to the safe securities study (as of 28 july 2015), the success rate for musical projects on the kickstarter platform was 50. 76 per cent。
Many of kickstarter's music-crowding projects are full of ideas。
In the second half of 2015, american musician david teie launched a project on kickstarter called "cat music" to build only music that cats enjoy and like, that the world likes to have so many friends with cats, that they make their own music, and that's cool! As at 28 november 2015, the project had received more than 10,000 users'support and raised more than $240,000 against the planned $20,000。
In addition, there was a new case of $600,000 in 2015 in which de la soul, a hip-hop legend group, decided 11 years later to release a new album, addressing the issue of production, promotion and sale of the album by breaking creative crowd-funding schemes and high returns. In 2012, more than $1 million was raised for a crowd-funding project launched by amanda palmer, which is currently ranked first in the platform's music category。
There are, of course, cases of failure in kickstarter, such as the 2015 musical puzzle game, cadence, for reasons such as reward-level problems, video and confusing information。
Last september, kickstarter founders strickler and chen announced the transformation of the company into a “public interest enterprise” (pbc, public service corporation) and its registration in delaware. Such a peacebuilding commission refers to companies that pursue both benefits and social values and requires that enterprises operate as traditional companies, but with higher standards of corporate purpose, accountability and transparency。
On 28 april 2009, kickstarter officially went online, with 121 days to complete the first 100 projects, compared with only 3 days to complete the most recent 100 projects. Kickstarter's crowd-building projects are divided into 15 categories: art, comics, crafts, dance, design, fashion, video, food, games, news, music, photography, publishing, technology and theatre。
Kickstarter is now the largest global integrated mass-generation platform, setting up a “crowd-out storm” worldwide, a global platform for commercial crowd-building. Of all funds raised, kickstarter will charge 5 per cent for services, while a further 3 to 5 per cent of third-party payments will need to be borne by the project sponsors。
Indiego: to enable individuals to earn equity gains in start-ups
This popular website, which was established in san francisco, began operating online in january 2008, initially targeting crowd-chamber projects in the film sector, and gradually evolved into a comprehensive crowd-chamber platform comprising films, music, technology, art, theatre and dance。
Indiego has recently carried out a wave of lay-offs, although the impact has not been significant and now stands at about 120 company-wide. Not long before the downsizing, indiegogo had just changed his looks and the former ceo slava rubin handed over the flag to the former company coo dave mandelbrot。
Last december, indiegogo came to kyoto for the first time and launched the china pilot programme, which aims to help china’s smart hardware products overcome the challenges of gaining access to the us market. The pilot project was innovative in the area of crowd-building, and the first 10-15 chinese start-up companies would be selected。
In 2014, indiego completed round b financing of $40 million, including the well-known kpcb, which is significantly higher than the $15 million in round a in 2012. In september 2011, indiego received $1. 5 million in seed investment。
In 2015, the co-founder of indiego and ceo slava rubin, in an interview with the huffington post, stated that relaxing existing regulations to allow individuals to earn equity gains in start-up companies would facilitate more people's participation in investing in “equity mobilization”。
Patreon: heading straight to the fan economy, small sponsorship of the artist
In may 2013, a vertical united states art network called patreon was launched。
Patreon, founded by musician jack conte and developer sam yam, is committed to becoming a “artist” sponsored website. Its starting point is the provision of continuous financial support to artists, who can “raise” the costs of sponsorship as long as their work is uploaded. Artists are free to set amounts, such as $3 and $10, at a minimum of $1. What patreon's method of financing means is a small sponsorship of “persons” and a condo。
Patreon, unlike the other popular web sites, which are centred on “products”, aims to help artists and content producers realize their dreams, mainly musicians, content creators on youtube platforms, writers, cartoonists, photographers, etc。
There are now 17,000 artists on the platform, and one artist after another has a project in which artists come from 15 art disciplines, including video/film, writing, music, painting, photography, games, science, education, dance, etc. In 2015, the number of works of art on the platform increased by 80 per cent。
At present, patreon's profit model is based on a 5 per cent commission charge and a 4 per cent credit card transaction fee on the sponsors, i. E. 91 per cent of the total financing available to the sponsors。
At the beginning of 2016, patreon announced a $30 million b round of financing, which will be used to hire additional engineers to further optimize team-building and products, led by thive capital, and supported by allen and company, charles river ventures and index ventures. As a result, the total financing of patreon has reached $47. 1 million. Prior to that, round a patreon received $15 million and in august 2013 angel finance totalled $2. 1 million。
In 2015, the platform was merged with subbable, another platform for artists, with an unknown amount of money。
Plegemusic: more focused and efficient for pre-sale and marketing of “musicians”
Pledgemusic came online in 2009 and is the most efficient crowd-sourced site in the music field, focusing more on integrated platforms such as kickstarter and indiego。
Pledgemusic believes that they are a platform for direct attention to fans and not a popular website. They focus only on raising funds for musicians, not retaining any ownership of the music created on the platform, and not processing any money transactions until the project reaches its funding targets。
In june 2013, global music canada (umc) and pledgemusic became partners. As an international music company that directly confronts fans, pledgemusic will provide its own platform and resources to umc artists。
In 2014, pledgemusic formed a cooperative alliance with cd baby, a digital music distributor, and his sister company, disc maker, a compact disc manufacturer, to provide record production, packaging and digital distribution services to independent musicians. When this partnership is established, a certain amount of preference will be granted to musicians or producers who, when launching a project on pledgemusic, choose the services associated with cd baby or disc makers。
In august 2014, rock band second-hand roses held a concert tour at the famous webster hall theatre in new york, united states, and launched a crowd-raiser project in collaboration with plede music, where fans could pre-purchase tickets to the concert。
The plegemusic platform provides two funding models — pre-sale and fixed financing. In a fixed funding model, full refunds are made to supporters if the project does not reach the planned level. In the pre-sale model, supporters are required to pay directly, much like traditional retail projects。
Han mymusictaste: playing the koreans, fans decide what concert they're having!
“stop wishing, start acting” is one of the slogans of mymusictaste, the platform for the korean concert。
In january of this year, mymusic taste, the korea fan-show platform, received $10 million in round a financing and soft silver south korea, with three stars, silicon valley’s famous formation 8, golden wind, timewise investment, partners investments, bokwang wind and tetum capital and investment。
Mymusictaste wants to expand globally after the current round of financing, in partnership with the stars of europe and the united states, japan and thailand, and has already established its own office in china. My musictaste was established in 2013 in seoul as a user-friendly platform for fans to vote online to select the stars they want to see, and the platform will then contact the stars to negotiate performances, an exclusively fan-driven economic product。
Since its establishment, mymusic taste has organized 80 concerts in 32 cities. The company currently has 500,000 users, but 90 per cent of them come from areas outside korea, where there are only 50,000 users on the mainland and the influence of the koreans。
My musictaste, while collating voting data on the website, can see not only the number of fans who vote for a star, but also the amount of money that fans spend on concerts, which not only reduces the risk for concert organizers, but also better drives the success of concerts。
In order to confirm the feasibility of these data, mymusictaste's questionnaire was very straightforward and simple, asking, for example, how much the user would like to spend to buy tickets. It also requires fans to have a “social mission” and sometimes to share short videos of stars in social media as a further way to judge whether the fan really likes a star who is voted for。
My musictaste earns its income from tickets and commissions for concerts organized through this platform. At the time of its initial establishment, the concert had a audience of 200-300 people, but now it has reached 15,000 people. According to data released by the founder, jaeseok lee, he himself had invested $50,000 to establish the platform, which received $250,000 in 2014, expected $1. 5 million in 2015, and hoped that $10 million in trade volume would be achieved in 2016 to achieve rapid development。
My musictaste is no longer a small company. Not long ago, its ceo ethan jaeseok lee indicated that live nation was their main rival. However, the company's future development is not to help the stars of tomorrow, but to work with reputable artists, and the company's focus is also to help concert organizers, unlike live nation, who runs artists and hosts musical live events。
