SliceThePie Grabs $2M In Funding
I
was critical of SliceThePie and the wisdom of the crowds last week, but obviously the guys with checkbooks disagree. The website that turns fans into a record label, has secured $2
million in Series C financing and will use the funding to enhance the offering and launch unnamed digital services for artists and record labels.
In the 9 months since launch, the site says fans have submitted 600,000 independent reviews of music submitted by artists helping Slicethepie identify which to present to investors and fans for financing. To date, 13 artists have been financed to record and release albums.
Investors who finance an artist on Slicethepie profit if the artist sells over 1,000 albums and singles fitting well with recent industry trends showing that the number of new hit artists is declining while there continues to be a place for a wider range of lower selling artists.
Investors include Mark Taylor, Director of Microsoft UK, Bob Holt,
Chairman and Chief Executive of Mears Group PLC, and Gavin Breeze,
founder of Datacash plc.
David Courtier-Dutton, founder and CEO said, "Slicethepie has pioneered the application of the Wisdom of Crowds in
artist discovery and music financing and established a proven business
model. With the business growing strongly we are delighted to have
completed this third financing round that puts us in a great position
going forward"
I actually strongly believe in the crowdfunding phenom, though it is Sellaband.com who pioneered it with Slice the Pie coming out shortly later. They both though have slightly different paths to the goal of crowdfunding. With Sellaband it is more a preorder of a limited Edition cd along with sharing in on the revenue for 24 months. Whereas Slice the Pie is a bit more complicated. Some few artists have been trying both with 1 “Trail” leaving Sellaband to enjoy the different approach of Slice the Pie. Though as more options arise these 2 are merely a direction that may not suit all artists.