On March 17 2016, Kickstarter took to their blog to announce that they acquired 5-year-old music community and subscription service, Drip. Actually, it was on the night right before the website was supposed to shut down. Drip was created by Ghostly International founder, Sam Valenti IV and co-founder Miguel Senquiz.
Kickstarter’s CEO, Yancey Strickler, explains how Drip and Kickstarter are similar in more ways than one:
“Many of today’s most respected and creative independent labels can be found on Drip — from Domino Records, Fool’s Gold, and Ghostly International, to Stones Throw, and Sub Pop.
Like Kickstarter, artists on Drip enjoy closer connections to the fans who help sustain their work. And fans enjoy early access to new releases, rare tracks, unique experiences, visual art, exclusive video, writing, and beyond.”
For now, they say that we should expect most things to stay the same. As a Benefit Corporation, Kickstarter is responsible for putting their community of artists, inventors, and creators first. This acquisition doesn’t change their overall goals, but they seem excited to see where this opportunity takes them. Strickler adds:
“Many of us at Kickstarter have admired Drip over the years. At heart, we’ve been on similar paths. Strengthening the bonds between artists and audiences, and fostering the conditions for a more vibrant creative culture is at the core of our work at Kickstarter, too.”
Drip announced that they were shutting down in February. The platform was launched 5 years ago to help create a music community where artists could get the kind of stable funding that they lacked at that time. Now that there are other services available that serves that need, the founders felt that it was time for a change and gave users until March 18th to say goodbye and export their music and data.
Now that Kickstarter has acquired the platform, Drip’s co-founder Miguel Senquiz will be joining the team at Kickstarter to represent Drip’s mission during this transition. Comments from the Drip community show that they are excited that the platform has been saved. As one member said:
“And thus, the evolution of independent music distribution lives on. Congrats Sam Valenti IV & Miguel Senquiz on the next phase of your endeavors.”
As we’ve noticed before, like in the case of Fundable, once a crowdfunding platform starts to acquire other platforms and services, more tend to follow. I’m curious to see where this change takes Kickstarter and what they have in store for us in the future.
What do you think about this acquisition? Feel free to leave any questions or comments below!
