Serj Tankian invests in Patreon

PanARMENIAN.Net - Musician Serj Tankian from System of a Down has invested in the crowdfunding firm Patreon, Music Ally reports.

By the end of 2019, Patreon expects to have paid out more than $1bn to its community of creators since its launch in 2013. But the company is also proving adept at raising money for its own business through more traditional means: yesterday it announced a $60m Series D funding round, taking its total raised since launch to nearly $166m.

Tankian, who is of Armenian is one of the investors in the latest round, alongside comedian Hannibal Buress and a group of institutional investors. Patreon CEO Jack Conte hailed the involvement of “our first creator/artist investors” saying that “this means we’ll have even more creative minds and hearts behind our mission to fund the creative class”.

Conte promised that Patreon will use the funding to accelerate its growth internationally – “new currencies, payment methods, and languages” as well as more offices across the world – while also developing more new features for its platform, and beefing up existing features like merchandise. “We’ll also give creators and their patrons better ways to engage, both one on one and as a community,” he wrote.

Patreon’s funding news comes in a strange year for crowdfunding. Music platform PledgeMusic’s troubles are well-known by now, and with the company still hoping to be bought, unresolved. Meanwhile, Kickstarter’s plans to relaunch its Patreon-style ongoing-crowdfunding service Drip with partner XOXO were recently cancelled – with XOXO claiming that “we couldn’t find a way to make the business viable… the resources required to support a high number of lower-volume creators always outpaced our revenue”.