Indie Labels Invest £250,000 in Streaming Platform Cantilever
UK-based music app Cantilever has secured £250,000 in pre-seed funding from independent labels and individual investors associated with those companies.
Investors include !K7, Because, City Slang, Domino, Everlasting, Exceleration, Hopeless, Ninja Tune, Partisan, Playground, Secret City, Secretly Group and Sub Pop.
These labels are also supporters of The Organization for Recorded Culture and Arts (ORCA).
The £250,000 investment fulfills Cantilever’s pre-seed funding goal.
Cantilever Founder Aaron Skates stated the funding will enable the company to hire staff, enhance the user experience, and expand operations.
Cantilever is a streaming platform focused on curated content, prioritizing quality over a large catalog.
A monthly subscription costs £4.99 and provides access to 10 albums, alongside long-form written content and artist interviews.
Subscription revenue is distributed to rights holders based on individual listener activity.
Aaron Skates, Founder of Cantilever, said: “Cantilever was built to serve independent record labels and artists, so having over a dozen of the world’s leading independents backing us is the strongest validation we could ask for.”
Christof Ellinghaus, Founder of City Slang, commented: “Independent labels have very few true partners left in the ecosystem. The platforms that make our music available follow their own agenda, which doesn’t always align with the interests of our community. When we came across Cantilever, we were thrilled to find a concept that 100% aligns with our values and is driven by heavy curation, fairness and enthusiasm for our artist’s music. That is something that all of us are truly happy to support. Still, our investment in Cantilever can only be seen as a tiny step towards a fair, artist-and-label centric streaming ecosystem. We still have many more steps to go.”
