Reverb Instrument Marketplace Receives $2.3 Million Series A Funding Round
David Kalt launched Reverb to address the issue musicians and music retailers have buying and selling instruments and gear on Ebay. This true pain point led to a nicely designed site that I previously covered off its merits. Today they'll be getting lots more attention with the news that they've receive a $2.3 million round of Series A funding from such diverse individuals as lean startup theorist and practitioner Eric Ries and Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick.
Reverb founder David Kalt bought Chicago Music Exchange in 2010. He then went on to launch the Reverb.com site in 2012 to solve the Ebay problem. Apparently that's going well.
In today's announcement Kalt states:
"Reverb.com’s low fees and musician-focused platform have already attracted more than 4000 dealers, ranging from individuals who are building businesses around their love of instruments and gear, to some of the largest, best known dealers in the country, such as Dave’s Guitars."
The overall online marketplace for instruments and gear is said to be $7 billion including new and used. I assume that's the States since the global market is larger.
That's plenty to attract VC investment if you're going to try to be king rather than just settling for a nice sustainable business. And investors are definitely attracted to Reverb.
Today's announced Series A round, totaling $2.3 million, includes such investors as:
"Best-selling author and lean startup pioneer Eric Ries, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, David Lowery of Cracker and Camper van Beethoven, and Lightbank’s Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky [ed., via Lightbank]. David Kalt, Reverb.com’s founder and CEO, also participated."
The die is now cast and the empire building begins in earnest.
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Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
