Earlier this month we wrote about startup Distro.fm, which was raising money on Kickstarter to help artists run their own subscription services. The company was shooting for $23k in funding, having already signed up bands including Phish and Umphrey’s McGee as customers.
Here’s how Distro.fm-powered subscriptions would work for fans, according to founder Kyle Marler in an Evolver.fm interview at the time: “You pay to subscribe to an artist, and for the next year, you receive whatever music they want to send you. Distro acts as a hub where bands can collect subscribers, upload songs, and automatically send it out to all their subscribers. That transaction is made as easy as possible.”
The deadline for the Kickstarter project was around 10 hours ago, at the time of writing, so how did it do? Not so well: it only raised $3,384. However, the company remains optimistic.
“”Even though we didn’t meet our fundraising goals at Kickstarter, this has been a huge success,” claims Distro.fm. “We’ve been contacted by hundreds of bands / labels to include their music on our platform. Various key figures in the music industry have reached out to lend their support for DISTRO as we move forward. Dozens of programmers have reached out to volunteer their talents to build the site…”
And more importantly, potential benefactors have also been getting in touch, meaning the service still has a shot at getting up and running fully.
