Announcing our new partnership with Microfundo!

We're very excited to announce new partnership with a very important and innovative player in the music space, Microfundo.

Microfundo will use mobile marketing services from Adva Mobile to enable mobile

microfinancing for International Music Artists. From the press release:

...thanks to a new Boston-based business collaboration between Microfundo and

Adva Mobile, aspiring musicians are getting a helping hand - from fans using their

mobile phones.

The idea is simple: Fans lend money via their mobile phone to support music projects of their favorite musicians. Fans are then repaid via revenue from future download sales of the artist’s music.

Musicians create their own mobile site that displays their microfunding campaign.

Musicians make direct appeals to fans at a concert or live event. Fans can respond and

contribute - in the moment – using their phones.

Microfundo CEO and co-founder Brad Powell got the idea bringing microfunding to the

music industry while working for Calabash Music, the online world-music company that

he also founded. “All of the artists I came into contact with faced the same financial

hurdle,” Powell says. “They needed capital. Most international artists in particular are

ignored by the mainstream music industry, creating a significant hurdle.”

Powell found a solution in one word: microfinance. He studied how international

microfinancing organizations like kiva.org arranged for investors to provide funds and

services to small businesses typically shunned by banks. He concluded it would not be

too hard to start something similar to support musicians.

“If this is working well for people who are funding what are basically complete strangers

in a foreign land,” he said, “why wouldn’t it work for music fans to fund artists whose

music they actually know and like.”

This is very exciting to us, specifically because we, too, believe that researching and finding new ways for artists to stay creative is vital for us to enjoy their creation.

So please, visit Microfundo's mobile website, check out their artists and help them bring you great music!