Music Businesses Of All Types Now Crowdfunding
Music crowdfunding has grown to encompass all aspects of music from study, recording and touring by musicians to music businesses in the broadest sense. The following campaigns, some still in progress and others recently completed, illustrate the range of music businesses turning to crowdfunding. These are excellent examples of where things stand now and how a surprising number of businesses are getting funded via new channels while some clearly miss the mark.
I previously wrote about music tech startup crowdfunding including a small selection of crowdfunding campaigns in progress. You can now go check out how they did and you'll see a combination of just meeting the goal (congratulations!) and of abject failure (my condolences).
You'll find at least one project that raised almost nothing of a huge goal showing that, among other things, they weren't smart enough to juice the campaign with their own money. You'll find another that has so many anonymous pledgers that it seems quite likely they were putting their own money in.
I understand that some people may have problems with that but I think it's the smart thing to do.
That said I want to take a look at a group of recent campaigns by music businesses, some still in progress, that give a sense of both the breadth and depth of music business crowdfunding campaigns.
Events
Milwaukee is headed to Austin TX (SXSW)
Going beyond getting a band to SXSW, these folks are trying to fund a full day of Milwaukee bands. They've managed to get a bunch of gift certificates for pledgers, which is great support from local businesses but doesn't tie the campaign into music very well.
Moving Music 2014 is a unique event series happening in Adelaide that was successfully funded in the fall and kicked off last month.
This exceptionally successful campaign by One Spark helped raise funds for their crowdfunding festival happening April 9 through 13 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Music Publication
CCM Magazine is now an online affair focused on Christian music. They successfully crowdfunded their campaign to bring out a print edition for their 35th Anniversary.
Musical Instruments
Bohemian Guitars makes oil can guitars inspired by South African musicians. They are now on their third crowdfunding campaign, after an extremely successful Kickstarter campaign that was followed by an "intrastate crowdfunding" campaign at SparkMarket.
You can find out more about their funding approach. Keep in mind that neither SparkMarket nor Fundable, where they're currently campaigning, are examples of equity crowdfunding services in a strict sense because they're only open to accredited investors. But they are setting the stage for possible moves into true equity crowdfunding when the SEC finally gets its act together.
Hardware
Geek Pulse: A Digital Audio Awesomifier for Your Desktop
Light Harmonic ran such a successful campaign for Geek Pulse, raising $1,174,075 (see above thumbnail) for a "high-definition DAC and headphone amplifier that connects to your computer, music server, or other digital device," that they did a followup raising $103,527 more.
Note that their rewards are mostly other products so this campaign, like many hardware, gadget and toy campaigns, would have an almost totally different dynamic than any of the rest discussed here.
Music Tech: In Progress
No disrespect but I'm just going to list this batch so I can get more in. If it's hard to tell what it is from the title, think about that when you choose a title for your campaign. It matters for supporter comprehension and for web searches.
Buzz Lanes, Helping musicians to succeed
Music Tech: Completed
Revohloo The Revolution of Music Video Entertainment.
Music Service PSonar Closes Successful Funding Round on SyndicateRoom
More:
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (Twitter/Facebook) is currently relaunching All World Dance. To suggest topics about music tech, DIY music biz or music marketing for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
Actually, our SparkMarket campaign was open to both accredited and non accredited investors, in which both groups invested. The Invest Georgia Exemption (IGE) allows GA registered companies to raise up to $1million / year for GA citizens. This includes non-accredited investors , who can invest up to $10,000 per deal. This raise was the first of its type since 1933. Sincerely, Adam Lee (Cofounder, Bohemian Guitars)
Interesting. Thanks for sharing. Unique in many ways!