Inventive platform EVEN, which permits artists to promote music on to followers, stated it has closed a $2.2 million seed spherical led by CSA companions.
The platform positions itself as the primary cease earlier than artists launch music on streaming platforms. Followers, in return, obtain entry to unique content material and experiences. The corporate’s CEO and founder Magazine Rodgriuez, says he began constructing the platform final February as a approach to assist Black and brown artists retain fairness of their artistic work.
Rodriguez stated EVEN goals to handle different ache factors that artists have immediately, akin to being compensated or credited correctly, by letting them join with their fan base simply, which in flip lets followers assist artists and keep away from having to pay charges to reseller platforms.
One of many greatest points is that Black and brown artists are sometimes not credited correctly because the supply for a lot of mainstream tendencies. This case is worse for artists coping with streaming platforms, a few of which have been accused of not correctly compensating any of artists in a good method.
For followers, it has turn out to be more and more pricey to assist their favourite artists. For instance, live performance tickets go to resellers who then jack up the worth, or alternatives solely go to unique bank card members reasonably than somebody inside the artist’s core fanbase. All of this usually leaves out Black, brown and different followers from marginalized communities who can’t afford resale tickets or qualify for costly, unique alternatives.
“Among the greatest artists on the planet are Black and brown, however the firms that service them will not be being led by individuals who seem like them, therefore this massive challenge of artists not getting paid sufficient or being paid every day,” Rodriguez added.
Rodriguez says the enterprise plans to make use of the seed cash for hiring and to assist develop the enterprise. The platform, at present in beta, is free to make use of and ad-free in the mean time, and it generates income by charging transaction charges. EVEN is constructed on the blockchain as a way to present extra transparency relating to such transactions.
The corporate plans to companion with artists like French Montana and experiment with merchandise like a chat function to permit artists and followers to speak. EVEN hopes to launch later this yr with greater than 600 artists; Rodriguez stated the waitlist of these trying to be part of the platform at present tops 4,000.
A music trade veteran of 10 years, Rodriguez was launched to the tech world after he helped construct an artwork program for the gener8tor, a startup accelerator primarily based in Madison, WI, in 2018. As that program grew to become extra well-liked, he was launched to buyers concerned with the accelerator, who then launched him to others who helped him increase the seed funding.
He’s now a part of a rarified membership: in any given yr, lower than 5% of all enterprise capital funding goes to Latino founders. Since fund managers are additionally woefully underrepresented (lower than 5% of VCs are Latino) Rodriguez stated when constructing his cap desk, he made positive to incorporate numerous fund managers like Raquel Filmanowicz, who identifies as Latino and is the founder and managing companion at VC 414.
Chatting with TechCrunch, Filmanowicz stated that Rodriguez’s “artistic and revolutionary method to fixing a vexing drawback within the music trade” made him “precisely the kind of entrepreneur VC 414” was trying to again. “We’re impressed with EVEN’s early traction and very proud to be an early investor in EVEN Labs.”
Different buyers within the spherical embody gAngels, gener8tor, and angel buyers Daniel Rotman, Adie Akuffo-Afful and Ogo.