We Are Giant raises $8M from Sterling Partners to launch music community platform

As artists attempt to not solely captivate audiences but additionally flip fandom into sustainable income streams, the competitors to innovate and join with followers on a deeper degree has continued to draw curiosity from traders within the music trade.

A brand new startup, We Are Giant, has simply launched as a group platform designed for the music trade, supported by an $8 million funding from Sterling Partners.

Based and led by Andy Apple, who beforehand served as an investor at enterprise capital companies Sound Ventures and Wavemaker Companions, We Are Big goals to offer a centralized house for group constructing, income technology, and direct-to-fan engagement, based on a press launch on Thursday (November 16).

We Are Big describes itself as an ad-free platform that gives artists a spread of instruments to monetize their work and create deeper connections with their fanbase. The platform’s options embrace licensed listening events for brand spanking new music and unreleased demos, unique livestreams, interactive chat rooms with musicians, and extra. 

The platform uniquely licenses pre-released and commercially out there music for listening events and offers efficiency licenses for livestreaming. This permits artists to simply report streams to SoundExchange and performing rights organizations, the corporate mentioned.

It additionally offers promotional assist, providing artists a centralized suite of free instruments to monetize their work. Artists can promote bodily merchandise, ticket livestreams, settle for suggestions throughout performances, and extra.

The platform’s ‘Chat’ characteristic, in the meantime, encourages like-minded fan engagement and serves as a discussion board for brand spanking new music discovery. Non-public chat rooms, built-in with digital streaming platforms, allow followers to hearken to music collectively in artist group channels.

The startup’s Founder and CEO, Andy Apple, shall be joined within the administration group by Dan McComas, the Vice President of Product & Group, in addition to VP of Music JP Slater, VP of Engineering Josh Fraser, and Head of Artist Success Tony Hartman. McComas beforehand served as SVP of product at Reddit and founding father of RedditGifts.

“Artists and IP homeowners have been underserved from a creator instruments perspective for too lengthy, all with out really proudly owning their fan relationships. Moreover, the vast majority of working musicians aren’t capable of make an inexpensive residing and have been utilizing outdated, fragmented, and misaligned promotional instruments with little return,” Apple mentioned.

“Our platform helps artists to maximise their careers, construct extra viable methods to make a residing, drive longevity, and optimize their most essential fan relationships by creating sustainable and profitable communities.”

Andy Apple, We Are Big

“At We Are Big, our aim is to vary this damaged system. Our platform helps artists to maximise their careers, construct extra viable methods to make a residing, drive longevity, and optimize their most essential fan relationships by creating sustainable and profitable communities,” the chief continued.

We Are Big is accessible by its web site and IOS app.

As a part of its preliminary beta part, We Are Big now has over 50 artists, spanning main label and unbiased signings to unbiased acts, who’ve established their very own group channels. Moreover, greater than 150 fan-led group occasions for artists like Dominic Fike, Mac Miller, Noah Kahan, Laufey, and beabadoobee have already taken place on the platform. We Are Big has additionally launched the primary style collective, The B-Side, for various music.

“We Are Big is primed to be a gamechanger for artists and followers alike, giving them the instruments they should higher join with each other in immediately’s rapidly-paced digital age,” mentioned Steven Taslitz, Co-Founder and Chairman of Sterling Companions. 

“We’re significantly excited that We Are Big helps musicians to monetize their hard-earned inventive work. We all know there’s a vivid future forward for the platform, backed by such a powerful management group, who’ve confirmed experience in enterprise, music, artist relations, tech, and importantly, group constructing,” Taslitz added.

“We Are Big is primed to be a gamechanger for artists and followers alike, giving them the instruments they should higher join with each other in immediately’s rapidly-paced digital age.”

Steven Taslitz, Sterling Companions

The launch of We Are Big comes amid growing investor urge for food for fan platforms. Final month, social media platform and residential for superfans Fave raised $2 million in an ongoing funding spherical that it expects will attain $6 million.

In Germany, Universal Music Group launched a fan platform known as YOUniverse, which thedescribes as a “digital and interactive fan platform… the place followers can meet and work together, and in future even meet their idols.”

These efforts observe the success of HYBE’s fan platform Weverse in South Korea, which has attracted 10 million monthly active users (MAUs) as of the top of Q2 2023.

Music Enterprise Worldwide