TCG is an independent media company. Their focus is on majority and minority investments in growing consumer businesses. Our portfolio includes digital media, commerce, marketplaces, sports, gaming, consumer finance, and health and wellness brands and platforms.

With offices in New York, Los Angeles, Charlottesville, Nashville, Atlanta, Bristol and London, Red Light Management is one of the most innovative artist management companies in the industry. Founded by Coran Capshaw in 1991 when he began managing the Dave Matthews Band, RLM’s roster now also includes Interpol, Phish, Ben Harper, Alabama Shakes, Pretty Lights and many more.  RLM is known for taking an entrepreneurial approach with its diverse roster of clients. Its managers are also at the forefront of defining the expanding role of personal management in the music business. The company’s capabilities include a broad expertise in artist development, touring, commerce, festivals, licensing, branded entertainment, artist driven philanthropy, and more.

Red Light Management

Betaworks Ventures is a product-focused, seed-stage venture capital fund, having invested in more than 150 companies. We invest in new consumer behaviors and trends powered by frontier technologies, and are often amongst the first institutional investors to invest.

Betaworks

Tycho is an American band focused on producing ambient, psychedelic, post rock, and electronic music. Its members include Scott Hansen, Zac Brown, and Rory O’Connor. Tycho is based in San Francisco, California.

Tycho

Third Prime is a venture firm focused primarily on the FinTech, PropTech and Crypto sectors. We invest in world-class entrepreneurs at the earliest stages and support them over the long haul. Our offices are located in New York City and Nashville.

Third Prime

Another Planet Entertainment offers an addition to clubs, stadiums, multi-day festivals, and everything in between, we promote events 52 weeks out of the year. The Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley, the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, The Castro, and The Independent in San Francisco, the Fox Theater in Oakland, the Oxbow RiverStage in Napa, and the Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harveys are the only venues that APE operates and promotes concerts at.

Another Planet Entertainment

Coil specializes in providing web content monetization solutions. Its monetization model offers an alternative to the status quo of paid advertisements and selling the public’s attention to the highest bidders. The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Coil

Polygon is a platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development and web3. Its growing suite of products offers developers easy access to all scaling and infrastructure solutions: L2 solutions (ZK Rollups and Optimistic Rollups), sidechains, hybrid solutions, stand-alone and enterprise chains, data availability solutions, and more. Polygon’s scaling solutions have seen widespread adoption with 7,000+ applications hosted, 1B+ total transactions processed, ~130M+ unique user addresses, and $5B+ in assets secured.

Polygon

Wave Digital Assets is a digital asset management organization that combines venture capital, funds, and wealth management. They also offer early-stage VC investment, asset management, treasury management, and strategic consulting in the crypto and blockchain ecosystems.

Wave Digital Assets

Copper is a diversified investment and advisory firm with ventures in entertainment, media, fashion, technology, and philanthropy.

Copper

Infinite Capital invests in generational innovation, with a focus on decentralized networks and deep tech.

Infinite Capital

Alive Ventures is a startup studio that imagines and builds companies, products, and services that help older adults live work and love. Alive Ventures has formally spun out of the Scan Foundation. Alive Ventures helps de-risk the traditional startup process while attracting high-caliber design and entrepreneurial talent to its mission.

Alive Ventures

Flamingo DAO is an NFT-focused DAO that aims to explore emerging investment opportunities for ownable, blockchain-based assets.

Flamingo DAO

Shima Capital is an investment fund that focuses on supporting blockchain startups. The firm is headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States.

Shima Capital

Venue Group is an entertainment and hospitality operator in the United Kingdom and the United States. The company was founded in 2019 by Ben Lovett and is headquartered in London, England, United Kingdom.

tvg hospitality

Spacestation Investments is the investment arm of the Spacestation.

Spacestation Investments

Synergis supports visionary founders in building the next generation of companies that will transform the global economy.

Synergis Capital

POAP stands for Proof of Attendance Protocol. It is a curated ecosystem for the preservation of memories. The company was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in New York, United States.

POAP

Noise DAO supports DAO music with technology.

Noise DAO

iLLENIUM

Blue Mind Capital operates as a venture capital firm.

Blue Mind Capital

Mick Management operates as a music band.

Mick Management

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that engages in consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets. It focuses on seed, early-stage, later-stage, expansion-stage, start-ups, growth companies, and incubation, and specializes in debt financing for start-ups and growth companies. Lightspeed Venture Partners invests in various sectors that include enterprise, consumer, big data, bitcoin, enterprise technology, cleantech, mobile, internet, financial technology, cloud solutions, e-commerce, storage, media, networking, energy, and software, software-as-a-service, information technology, biotechnology, and social. It mainly invests in countries such as the United States, Europe, Israel, China, and India.

Lightspeed Venture Partners

Dragonfly Capital Partners brings together the leading participants in the decentralized economy. Its global ecosystem enables us to invest in and support the most promising opportunities in the crypto asset class.

Dragonfly

Coinbase Ventures is an investment arm of Coinbase that aims to invest in seed-stage cryptocurrency and blockchain startups. The company was founded in 2018 and is based in San Francisco, California, United States.

Coinbase Ventures

J17 Capital has its sights focused squarely on North America with the aim of investing in and bringing needed capital to technology, pharmaceutical, and therapeutic industries.

J17 Capital

Foundations Artist Management is a music based company that represents artists.

Foundations Artist Management

Black Squirrel Partners is an investment firm.

Black Squirrel Partners

Bill Silva Ventures (BSV) is the investment firm associated with Bill Silva Entertainment. Bill Silva Ventures invests in startups at pre-seed and seed stage and as an LP in venture capital funds. BSV’s investment thesis is built upon Bill Silva’s success in the music industry where he finds artists and cultural movements early which he applies to venture founders. Bill is committed to learning from and nurturing the brightest minds who see the future differently. Currently BSV’s global portfolio consists of 60+ seed startup investments and 15 venture fund investments with sector exposure including music, entertainment, metaverse, consumer, healthtech and fintech. With a global outlook, BSV has geographical centers of expertise in Los Angeles, New York, London and Lisbon. Notably, BSV is an LP in Techstars Music where Bill is a partner and mentor and an investor in Creative Futures Collective, rebalancing social capital access to the creative industries for diverse talent, a personal cause he cares about.

Bill Silva Ventures

TAG Music

Method Music

Medallion

Medallion develops a blockchain-based platform to connect artists and their fans. It also allows users to launch digital worlds and create communities, and it allows them to exchange digital goods, helping artists expand fan participation, actionable insights, and economic potential.

<div>Medallion is a direct artist-to-fan platform that enables artists to reach, engage, and monetize their most valuable fans. Its proprietary technology helps artists build community-centric digital spaces and target highly engaged fans with exclusive access to product drops, merchandise, and experiences. It also offers white-label customization, allowing artists to personalize their digital spaces with their own color themes and backgrounds. This feature provides artists with a unique branding opportunity, allowing them to create a personalized and visually appealing online presence.</div>

Giving creators the power of content monetization and audience engagement.

Creator Economy

Metallica Among Investors In $13.7M Funding Round for Artist-to-Fan Platform Medallion

<div>
 
 Medallion is a direct artist-to-fan platform that enables artists to reach, engage, and monetize their most valuable fans. Its proprietary technology helps artists build community-centric digital spaces and target highly engaged fans with exclusive access to product drops, merchandise, and experiences. It also offers white-label customization, allowing artists to personalize their digital spaces with their own color themes and backgrounds. This feature provides artists with a unique branding opportunity, allowing them to create a personalized and visually appealing online presence.
 
 
 In 2023, the company introduced &quot;Digital Deluxe,&quot; a chart-eligible format in the UK, Australia, and Germany. It allows artists to sell a digital version of a music album with an embedded music player, downloadable audio, images, and video. Physical items can also be sold through an integration with Shopify.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In December 2023, the platform served 20 artists, including Jungle, Greta Van Fleet, Illenium, Disclosure, and Tiga.
 
 
 Funding and financials&nbsp;
 
 
 In January 2024, the company raised 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25232">
 USD 13.7 million in a Series A
 </a>
 funding round led by Dragonfly and Lightspeed Faction. It planned to use the funds to accelerate Medallion's technical development to create more revenue opportunities for artists and immersive experiences for fans around major artist events. 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Patreon provides a platform for creators to offer numerous types of content (videos, text, podcasts, images, etc.) for which fans can subscribe to a monthly membership without any ads or algorithms. Patrons (Patreon subscribers) can pay monthly or per post for content access, in addition to the pay-what-you-want option. Creators are paid monthly or for every new post uploaded. They can offer rewards for different tiers, including meeting patrons or custom work upon the patron&rsquo;s request. Creators are offered three packages: Lite, Pro, and Premium. Lite offers basic creator tools for a membership business with no tiers for fans; Pro offers additional tools and perks (e.g., workshops) with unlimited membership tiers; Premium caters to established companies with a large following, earning a monthly income of USD 5,000 or more, offering Pro services in addition to advanced features and Dedicated Partner Manager services. Creators can start for free and are charged a monthly commission based on their plan when they start earning: 5% (Lite), 8% (Pro), and 12% (Premium), as well as payment processing fees. 
 
 
 The company revealed in November 2021 that it is building a video hosting platform with a native player to eliminate the reliance of third-party video hosting platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo for creators to share video content with their patrons.
 
 
 Memberful, a Patreon-owned membership software platform for independent creators, launched a newsletter feature in October 2021, allowing creators to send news emails to their subscribers. In the future, creators will be able to make posts publicly viewable and schedule and send targeted emails to specific groups of subscribers. Notably, Memberful&rsquo;s paid plans (charged monthly) retain 4.9% of creator revenue, while competitor Substack retains 10%.
 
 
 Patreon acquired tech recruiting firm, Clear Talent, in August 2021 to scale up talent and build its engineering, product, and design team. The company seeks to accelerate the introduction of new features and platform capabilities and double the total monthly revenue its creators earn to around USD 200 million. In October 2023, the firm 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22877">
 acquired Moment,
 </a>
 a digital events platform, to strengthen event management solutions for creators.
 
 
 Key 
 customers
 and partnerships
 
 
 As of August 2022, Patreon had more than 250,000 creators, over 8.5 million active subscribers, and had paid out more than USD 3.5 billion to creators. 
 
 
 In June 2021, Patreon partnered with shesaid.so, an international community of women and gender minorities, to co-present the Alternative Power 100 Music List 2021 (#AltList) with the theme &ldquo;The New Creative Economy.&rdquo; Patreon and shesaid.so aim to make the music industry more inclusive and will co-host a series of virtual and physical events (including panel discussions and creator networking). The company has also partnered with third-party services, including Vimeo (to host videos) and Discord (for community chats).
 
 
 Funding
 
 and
 financials
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s most recent funding round was a Series F round worth USD 155 million in April 2021, led by new investor Tiger Global Management. This round triples Patreon&rsquo;s valuation to USD 4 billion. The funds are to be used to further develop its platform for mobile and desktop, increase content consumption tools, and accelerate its international footprint.
 
 
 The total cumulative payouts to creators via the platform surpassed USD 2 billion as of September 2020, and the company expects annual payouts to pass USD 1 billion in 2021. 
 
</div>

Patreon

<div>
 
 Substack offers a publishing platform that encompasses design, analytics, and payment infrastructure to assist newsletter subscriptions. The platform enables writers to focus on content creation and monetization via subscriptions. Writers can build their own paid newsletter subscription businesses and may choose to start with free newsletters for lead generation. Newsletters can be published to the web in addition to individual email addresses and its mobile app.&nbsp; The platform has a dedicated discovery section ranking the top newsletters, which are then promoted based on &ldquo;internet points&rdquo;. The platform supports podcasting by allowing writers to embed MP3s into their newsletters.
 
 
 The company launched multiple product improvements over the years, including video creation and editing features (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24569">
 November 2023,
 </a>
 the capacity to publish video podcasts, create interactive AI-generated transcripts, and customize shareable video clips
 ), AI-powered audio transcription tools (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21412">
 August 2023,
 </a>
 featuring transcript generation and audiogram creation capabilities), Private Substacks (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15987">
 January 2023,
 </a>
 where readers can request to subscribe to read users posts) Substack Grow (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4243">
 August 2021
 </a>
 , to help writers add paying subscribers in), Substack Local (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3163">
 April 2021
 </a>
 , an initiative to support the local news ecosystem), Substack Pro (to offer advance payments for certain writers), Substack Defender (July 2020, to offer legal support to writers in).&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 Writers have to bring in their own readers, and once they start earning (at a minimum of USD 3 per month), a commission of 10% (plus the Stripe payment processing fee) will be charged on the writer&rsquo;s income. Additionally, Substack stated that it has no plans to include advertisements as an additional revenue stream within the platform. By July 2021, the company reported its top 10 publishers bring in more than USD 20 million per year in combined subscription revenue. Moreover, the company has attracted famous journalists such as Andrew Sullivan, Casey Newton, and Edith Zimmerman. Substack had more than 500,000 paid subscribers as of March 2021.&nbsp;
 
 
 Other notable events include the acquisition of subscription-based social networking app Cocoon in 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5113">
 August 2021
 </a>
 , the acquisition of Australian public correspondence startup Letter in 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4601">
 July 2021
 </a>
 and the funding of podcast network Booksmart Studio&rsquo;s launch in 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4390">
 July 2021
 </a>
 .
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s most recent funding round was Series B funding worth USD 65 million in 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3156">
 March 2021
 </a>
 . The round was led by return investor Andreessen Horowitz, valuing Substack at approximately USD 650 million. The funds are to be utilized to rapidly expand the Substack Pro program alongside the implementation of other features.&nbsp;
 
 
 Substack reported a net loss of USD 22.9 million in 2021, having grown from a net loss of USD 2.3 million in 2020.
 
</div>

Substack

<div>
 
 Cameo offers a platform where creators, such as influencers, celebrities, athletes, artists, and musicians, can provide personalized videos and shout-outs to fans as per their request, charging for each video from USD 5 to as high as USD 2,500. Creators who have a minimum of 20,000 Instagram followers are automatically admitted onto the platform, where they set their own price and can choose to accept a fan request or not within seven days. The creator must fulfill the request within a week, which the fan can download and share. Additionally, Cameo provides a messaging option for less expensive creator/fan interactions. Cameo takes a 25% commission on each transaction on the platform.
 
 
 As of September 2020, Cameo had more than 30,000 creators across multiple industries. Cameo reported that it generated around USD 100 million in video transactions in 2020, with more than 2 million video messages being shared on its platform since launch, of which 80% were gifts for others. Furthermore, the company reported its creators and fans are based in 138 and 178 countries, respectively, with almost 20% of Cameos being purchased from outside of the US as of March 2021. For example, Cameo entered into a commercial partnership (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8576">
 February 2022
 </a>
 ) with Softbank, an existing investor of Cameo, to add more Japanese creators and expand its platform in Japan as a culturally fluent localized version.
 
 
 Cameo acquired marketing and merch company Represent (October 2021) whose clients include Jennifer Lopez, Ed Sheeran, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matthew McConaughey, among others. The acquiring company will onboard the Represent team as well as Represent&rsquo;s existing client relationships. In the near term, Cameo plans to allow fans to purchase &ldquo;gift bundles&rdquo; that pair a Cameo video with related merchandise from the creator. The company hopes to introduce new forms of creator-fan engagement, establish new creator revenue opportunities, and offer non-profit organizations a new way to raise funds.
 
 
 Funding and financials 
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s most recent funding round was Series C funding worth USD 100 million in March 2021, which valued the company at over USD 1 billion, achieving unicorn status. The funds are to be utilized to enhance the Core Cameo experience and capabilities, create new creator-fan engagement products (including Fan Clubs and Cameo Calls), and develop Cameo's B2B business. The company also plans to continue its international expansion.
 
</div>

Cameo

<div>
 
 Buttondown offers a publishing platform for writers to create and distribute newsletters on a subscription basis (price set by the writer) or for free. The platform does not charge writers until they reach 1,000 subscribers, after which they are charged a monthly fee of USD 5 per thousand subscribers. Buttondown also offers advanced features for professionals at a monthly fee of USD 29. Writers can send multiple separate newsletters from the same account, catering to different audiences by maintaining separate mailing lists.
 
 
 The platform also provides writers with user-specific analytics and insights, including features such as side-by-side comparisons of multiple emails. Buttondown has integrated with numerous third-party providers, Ghost and Medium (blogging platforms), Squarespace and Weebly (website building and hosting service providers), and web application integrator, Zapier.  As of December 2020, the company is run entirely by the CEO and founder, Justin Duke, and reported to have a monthly cost base of around USD 1,100. Furthermore, the CEO has made a commitment to donate at least 10% of profits to the software that enables it.
 
</div>

Buttondown

<div>
 
 Disciple Media, headquartered in the UK, offers bespoke community media apps for creators to privately share and own their content while having control, especially regarding monetization. Creators can use the platform to promote their brand, increase reach and engagement with fans, and monetize by charging fans a monthly subscription for access in addition to in-app purchases, sponsorship, and advertising. The company claims that the app-creating process had been reduced to 10 minutes since 2017.
 
 
 The company reported 200% revenue growth and recurring revenue growth of 160% in 2020. As of July 2021, the platform has reached over 500 global communities (up from 200 in May 2020) with 2 million members using the platform. The company claims that the growth of recurring revenue by more than 850% in 2019 was driven by monthly growth of 15% in new communities and 20% in members.
 
 
 Disciple Media raised USD 6 million in a Series A funding round in July 2021, led by previous investors including Nick Mason (Pink Floyd drummer) and Rob Pierre (founder and CEO of Jellyfish), among others. In addition to the company&rsquo;s fundraising, Eirik Svendsen&mdash;an expert in online marketplaces, SaaS, and the publishing and media industry&mdash;has come on as Chairman of the Board.
 
</div>

Disciple Media

Platforms that allow creators to share several types of content. Some platforms also offer fan engagement/ interactions with the creative artist via videos/ live streams.

Platforms that offer exclusive content to signed up members.

Platforms that allow creators to share their written works and blogs.

Platforms that provide tools to discover relevant analytics, produce content, engage with the audience, and help with the overall process.

Platforms that allow creators to share one of either videography, live streams, photos, music or audio podcasts with fan engagement capabilities.

Blockchain-based Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) allow creators to transfer ownership of their content via platforms that share proceeds with buyers, sellers, creators, and platforms via smart contracts.

Web3 enables creator monetization by providing decentralized platforms for creators to engage with their audience

NFT platforms segment uses metaverse concepts

<div>
 Medallion, a platform connecting artists and fans, raised $13.7 million in Series A funding from Dragonfly, Lightspeed Faction, Coinbase Ventures, Infinite Capital, and J17. The funds will be used to enhance Medallion's technology and create more revenue opportunities for artists and provide fans with immersive experiences. Since its 2022 launch, Medallion has aided artists in creating community-centric digital spaces, offering exclusive product drops, merchandise, and experiences to fans.
 It provides opportunities for artists to monetize fan engagement. Its latest product, Digital Deluxe, includes exclusive content highlighting the story behind the music.
</div>

Medallion

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