Flymachine, a virtual venue for live entertainment, has announced that it has raised $21 million in new funding. The financing was led by Greycroft Partners and SignalFire, with additional participation from Primary Venture Partners, Contour Venture Partners, Red Sea Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank.
Angel investors joining the round include music-industry luminaries Coran Capshaw, Bill Silva, Marty Diamond, and Larry Webman, Bay Area concert promoter Another Planet Entertainment, Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons, WIRED magazine co-founding editor John Battelle, and LionTree Partners. With this new investment, Flymachine will continue to grow its team, expand its network of venue partners, and develop new features for its digital events platform.
“Virtual events have an opportunity to change the game for artists, promoters, and fans, but the technology that exists today is pretty underwhelming — videobox, paywall, and a bunch of scrolling nonsense; not exactly what one would call game-changing,” said Andrew Dreskin, CEO and Co-Founder of Flymachine.” At Flymachine, we’re creating something different: a digital venue of the future, an art medium, and a social meeting place. It offers a level of depth, agency and social interactivity that hadn’t before existed. It’s a pretty cool way to check out a show remotely.”
“Flymachine is live digital events on a completely different level. The social element is unparalleled, and the artist and fan engagement we’ve seen so far has been amazing. We’ve already heard great feedback from artists and their teams about the potential to connect more with their fans and bring immersive, new experiences to concerts,” said Marty Diamond, Managing Executive at Wasserman Music.
“The Flymachine team’s deep track record of architecting many of the world’s best live entertainment experiences including Bonnaroo and Outside Lands, to name a few, aligns perfectly with the massive opportunity to unlock the future of social streaming for live events,” added Wayne Hu, Managing Director at SignalFire. “In just a short amount of time, the team has built strategic partnerships with many of the most well-known venues in North America, developed the most innovative platform in the market, and created a next-generation experience for fans and artists. This was an investment we absolutely had to make.”
Arya has been a part of the Content & Research Team at Hrnxt.com. She is a keen observer of economic developments, emerging businesses, people in business and keeps a tab on latest happenings in the business environment.