Direct-to-fan platform Medallion raises $13.7m from investors including Metallica’s Black Squirrel Partners

Direct-to-fan platform Medallion has raised USD $13.7 million in a Sequence A funding spherical, the corporate introduced on Thursday (December 21).

The spherical was led by international crypto enterprise fund Dragonfly (also an investor in Nas and Lil Child-backed metaverse agency Everyrealm) and Lightspeed Faction, a blockchain-focused enterprise capital agency. Different contributors included tech buyers Coinbase Ventures, Infinite Capital, J17, The Chemin Group, Third Prime and Zeal Capital.

Traders from the music business included Invoice Silva Leisure, Black Squirrel Companions (founded by members of Metallica), Man Lawrence of digital music duo Disclosure, Foundations Artist Administration, digital music undertaking Jungle, indie rock band Mt. Pleasure, Methodology, Canadian DJ Tiga and artist growth/administration agency TAG Music.

Medallion says it plans to make use of the funds to “speed up an bold technical roadmap to ship web new income alternatives for artists and immersive experiences for group members round pivotal artist moments”.

Medallion is one in all a rising variety of corporations in search of higher methods for artists to monetize superfans, that section of the music viewers that’s prepared to pay extra for artist merch, unique content material and enhanced entry to their favourite artists – or what Medallion calls “highest intent followers.”

The corporate says that, since launching in 2022, it has scaled to round 200,000 music followers, and quite a few musical artists, together with Disclosure, My Morning Jacket, Jungle, Greta Van Fleet, Tycho and Sigur Rós, are utilizing the platform’s white-label fan expertise and e-commerce providers.

The corporate boasts that Medallion-powered communities “rapidly turned artists’ fastest-growing group channel, attracting 86% extra members than their Facebook Teams, 161% greater than Reddit, and 206% greater than Discord.”

The Sequence A funding spherical follows an initial seed funding round in 2022 that raised greater than $9 million. That spherical was led by The Chemin Group, and included investments by Polygon Ventures, Mike Shinoda, Betaworks, Crimson Gentle Ventures and Noise DAO, together with Medallion artists iLLENNIUM and Tycho.

The corporate is led by Matt Jones, the previous CEO of Warner-owned live performance discovery service Songkick. The management staff contains veterans from Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Grailed, Warner Music Group and Live Nation.

“Artists proudly owning direct entry to their followers is vital, however in addition they want extra methods to ship worth for it to drive affect,” Jones mentioned in a press release issued Thursday.

“Artists are beginning to perceive they aren’t simply content material creators, however manufacturers themselves, and in consequence are constructing multimodal companies that transcend merely music and content material,” mentioned Rob Hadick, Basic Companion at Dragonfly.

“Medallion is constructing the infrastructure to allow artists to straight work together with their highest intent prospects by means of new and unique merchandise and experiences, whereas concurrently proudly owning the shopper relationship themselves and driving web new income alternatives round their IP. We consider this paradigm shift will permeate throughout everything of the creator financial system.”

“Artists proudly owning direct entry to their followers is vital, however in addition they want extra methods to ship worth for it to drive affect.”

Matt Jones, Medallion

Lightspeed Faction’s Will Leas added: “Artists solely have direct relationships with a fraction of their fanbase. Medallion solves this drawback by unlocking direct artist-to-fan connection. The staff has a historical past of constructing pioneering know-how for the world’s greatest artists, and we’re thrilled to again them on this journey.”

Medallion’s most up-to-date product launch is Digital Deluxe, a chart-eligible format out there within the UK, Germany and Australia that permits artists to create “immersive digital albums.”

The corporate credits the success of Jungle’s most up-to-date album, Volcano, partly to the group’s use of Digital Deluxe to supply a digitally signed album cowl, audio downloads and unique entry to a feature-length album movie.Music Enterprise Worldwide