The arrival of the iTunes retailer led to a monumental shift in how we consumed music and since then, the emergence of streaming companies has additional modified the music trade. The arrival of know-how and internet platforms has additionally allowed artists to attach with for artists to attach with their fan communities in novel methods beforehand unimaginable.  Medallion is a direct-to-fan gross sales and advertising and marketing platform for artists.  Artists can effortlessly launch their digital presences, leverage Medallion as a further distribution channel for brand spanking new releases and launches, talk instantly with their fan bases, and promote merchandise. Followers can showcase their loyalty and construct their “file of fandom” to safe unique advantages together with collectibles and tickets.  The corporate works with a number of independent-minded artists and plans to scale its providing to serve the wants of any artist seeking to construct a fanbase of engaged lovers.

AlleyWatch caught up with Medallion CEO Matt Jones to be taught extra concerning the inspiration for the enterprise, the corporate’s strategic plans, newest spherical of funding, and far, far more…

Who had been your traders and the way a lot did you elevate?

We closed $13.7M of Collection A funding. The spherical was co-led by Dragonfly and Lightspeed Faction, alongside know-how traders reminiscent of Coinbase Ventures, Infinite Capital, J17, The Chernin Group, Third Prime, and Zeal Capital. The spherical additionally included music trade traders Invoice Silva Leisure, Black Squirrel, Man Lawrence of Disclosure, Foundations Artist Administration, Jungle, Mt. Pleasure, Methodology, Tiga, and TAG Music.

In 2022, we raised greater than $9M of seed funding from traders together with The Chernin Group, Polygon Ventures, Mike Shinoda, Betaworks, Purple Mild Ventures, and Noise DAO, together with present Medallion artists ILLENNIUM and Tycho. It’s been great and inspiring to welcome artists that use Medallion amongst our traders!

Inform us about your services or products.

We’re constructing a gross sales and advertising and marketing platform constructed for artists to succeed in, interact, and monetize their followers. The know-how permits artists to spin up white-label internet app environments the place followers can collect, goal particular buyer segments to ship first entry to tickets, music, and merch in addition to promote native premium merchandise to ship extra immersive fan experiences centered round their music. By utilizing Medallion, artists personal the fan knowledge and don’t need to compete in opposition to massive algorithms simply to succeed in their core viewers.

Our imaginative and prescient is to assist artists obtain financial independence by enabling them to transform followers into lifelong supporters. Over time, followers interacting inside Medallion-powered artist communities will be capable to construct and share a ‘file of fandom’ by taking key actions (e.g. checked in at a present, listening to new music first) and unlocking a collection of collectibles because of this. We predict there’s quite a lot of upside to be unlocked in connecting artists and their followers extra deeply.

What impressed the beginning of Medallion?

Throughout 2021, on the top of the tech growth and when the music trade was nonetheless recovering from the consequences of COVID, it turned clear that extra artists than ever wished to go direct-to-consumer with their content material and merchandise. However there wasn’t an answer available in the market that was made for musical artists to construct a sustainable enterprise and that would provide followers genuine and thrilling digital experiences.

Medallion started working in early 2022 to deal with this hole within the trade. The imaginative and prescient is to construct essentially the most highly effective direct-to-fan gross sales and advertising and marketing platform for artists to show massive followers into lifelong supporters. With Medallion, artists can create a digital area that they personal, invite followers to develop into members to seize knowledge with account creation, reward them with early entry to music and tickets, and promote unique digital music merchandise.

How is it totally different?

For starters, we’re a moments-driven platform for artists, not one other content material treadmill they should sustain with endlessly. There are a number of crucial moments in a cycle which are ‘make or break’ for many artists. Medallion is constructing fan engagement and monetization fashions that work primarily based on this dynamic.

Second, we’re giving artists full possession of the info and inventive management over their fan environments. Most platforms that artists use at the moment don’t enable for this, nor do they prioritize the fan expertise, which we do.

Moreover, we’re an especially devoted crew with years of expertise constructing game-changing know-how inside the media, leisure, and e-commerce area. We’re laser-focused on constructing one thing artists and their followers love.

What market are you concentrating on and the way massive is it?

We’re concentrating on the highest 5-10% of artists followers as we all know they drive nearly all of music consumption and gross sales (see Goldman Sachs’ Music within the Air report, and the Luminate report, each of which underscore the worth and significance of an artist’s most engaged followers). By creating extra direct pathways to reaching and delighting this section, artists should do much less total gross sales and advertising and marketing work over time to drive total affect.

What’s your small business mannequin?

We take a proportion of gross sales on the platform. Presently, artists can promote two forms of merchandise:

The primary is Digital Deluxe, a singular album format that provides followers unique entry to bonus content material round music releases, together with high-quality downloads. This may be extra movies, audio, or imagery. This product is absolutely native to the platform. Some examples embrace Sigur Ros’ ATTA, Illenium Remixes, and Jungle Movie Bundle.

The second is the Collectible Bundle. With Collectible Bundles, artists can promote unique and restricted version bundles of bodily and digital collectible objects reminiscent of posters and buying and selling playing cards. The success of bodily objects on this product is supported by way of an integration with Shopify. Examples embrace Mt. Pleasure’s tour bundle and Sigur Ros tour posters.

How are you making ready for a possible financial slowdown?

Whatever the macro surroundings, we’re centered on constructing a platform that generates significant and sustainable new income for artists by way of content material and experiences followers actually need to personal. By promoting digital merchandise by way of our platform at the moment, artists are already producing new income they wouldn’t have in any other case obtained, and the worth is significant compared to streaming and merch.

On the fan aspect, we’ve discovered that we have now superfans who’re keen to pay to precise their fandom and help the artist. We’ve delivered merchandise round significant content material and experiences that followers truly need to personal and imagine these superfans will proceed to help artists they love even in a downturn.

What was the funding course of like?

We’ve been having conversations with a wide range of traders for a very long time. The fundraise was the fruits of a lot of onerous work from our product and know-how groups to get us the traction we wanted to underscore the large potential for our enterprise.

What are the largest challenges that you simply confronted whereas elevating capital?

Elevating cash is at all times a big dedication – on high of operating an organization. In order that’s at all times the first problem: persevering with to construct the enterprise whereas additionally pushing ahead with traders to point out how their investments will likely be strategically deployed to maneuver us to the subsequent milestone.

What elements about your small business led your traders to write down the verify?

Though we will’t converse to the specifics of why every of our traders determined to take a position, all of our traders imagine Medallion is tackling a very necessary drawback for artists and followers, and traction across the platform has been very robust.

What are the milestones you intend to attain within the subsequent six months?

We’ve been very intentional about onboarding the precise artists early on so we will be taught and ship an expertise followers deserve. We’ve discovered so much on this course of and are excited to now scale to extra artists and ship main updates to the core fan experiences surrounding key moments, reminiscent of first listens of recent music, ticket pre-sales, and different premium music merchandise that may’t be discovered anyplace else.

What recommendation are you able to provide firms in New York that should not have a contemporary injection of capital within the financial institution?

Keep near your clients’ wants and remedy their most necessary issues. In the event you try this properly, all the things else will observe.

The place do you see the corporate going now over the close to time period?

We’re heads down, constructing! Within the coming months, we plan to launch a lot of thrilling new artist communities and ship important platform and fan expertise updates.

What’s your favourite winter vacation spot in and across the metropolis?

We spend quite a lot of time within the Hudson Valley, NY space as we have now household up there. We love the native farmers markets, climbing, and ice hockey (when it’s chilly sufficient).

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