Artistic platform EVEN, which permits artists to promote music on to followers, mentioned 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 Rodriguez, says he began constructing the platform final February as a method to assist Black and brown artists retain fairness of their inventive work.

Rodriguez mentioned EVEN goals to handle different ache factors that artists have immediately, comparable to being compensated or credited correctly, by letting them join with their fan base simply, which in flip lets followers help 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 as the source for a lot of mainstream developments. This case is worse for artists coping with streaming platforms, a few of which have been accused of not correctly compensating any of their artists in a good method.

For followers, it has grow to be increasingly costly to help their favourite artists. For instance, live performance tickets go to resellers who then jack up the value, or alternatives solely go to unique bank card members reasonably than somebody throughout the artist’s core fanbase. All of this typically leaves out Black, brown and different followers from marginalized communities who can’t afford resale tickets or qualify for costly, unique alternatives.

“A number of the greatest artists on the planet are Black and brown, however the corporations that service them aren’t being led by individuals who seem like them, therefore this large subject of artists not getting paid sufficient or being paid each 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 in an effort to present extra transparency relating to such transactions.

The corporate plans to accomplice with artists like French Montana and experiment with merchandise like a chat characteristic to permit artists and followers to speak. EVEN hopes to launch later this yr with greater than 600 artists; Rodriguez mentioned the waitlist of these seeking to be a part of the platform at present tops 4,000.

A music business veteran of 10 years, Rodriguez was launched to the tech world after he helped construct an artwork program for the gener8tor, a startup accelerator based mostly in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2018. As that program turned extra standard, he was launched to traders 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, less than 5% of all venture capital funding goes to Latino founders. Since fund managers are additionally woefully underrepresented (lower than 5% of VCs are Latino) Rodriguez mentioned when constructing his cap desk, he made positive to incorporate various fund managers like Raquel Filmanowicz, who identifies as Latino and is the founder and managing accomplice at VC 414.

Talking to TechCrunch, Filmanowicz mentioned that Rodriguez’s “inventive and revolutionary strategy to fixing a vexing drawback within the music business” made him “precisely the kind of entrepreneur VC 414” was seeking to again. “We’re impressed with EVEN’s early traction and intensely proud to be an early investor in EVEN Labs.”

Different traders within the spherical embrace gANGELS, gener8tor and angel traders Daniel Rotman, Adie Akuffo-Afful and Ogo.