When we last heard from Bart Decrem, he was a vice president in charge of mobile games at Disney, after he sold his mobile game startup Tapulous to the mouse house. Now he’s back with a new music startup called Ampli.Fi.
Ampli.Fi is an online music venue where fans can interact directly with music stars via intimate live video sessions. The platform is built around the idea of enabling artists to create deeper relationships with their fans. And fans can use the two-way communication to directly and instantly support the artists with money.
“In the week leading up to the launch, Ampli.Fi has already seen some amazing performances in an array of music genres from all over the world,” said Decrem, in an email to VentureBeat. “More importantly, we’ve experienced an incredible level of engagement. Artists have garnered hundreds of fans to the platform in the pre-launch week alone.”
Last week, Shoemaker Studios held a live online event in the home of one of the company’s friends in Jakarta, Indonesia. Forty people tuned in to experience the impromptu jazz concert. Later that day, Naeman, an up-and-coming street singer in Switzerland, held his first livestream. Sixty fans joined the chat room — mostly teenage girls from all over the world. Those are just a couple of examples of the live activity around Ampli.Fi.
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Ampli.Fi competes with a bunch of music rivals, such as YouNow, Stageit, and other livestream platforms. It relies on real money, rather than virtual currency. Ampli.Fi has the equivalent of a tip jar, or subscriptions for $5 a month. And Decrem said it is 100 percent about the music.
“While other platforms have livestreamed content in a variety of genres, Ampli.Fi’s platform is solely for music,” he said. “It’s not just about discovering awesome content — our mission is to build a community of like-minded people who are passionate about music. I’m super excited, and feel like we’re building something super special and interesting. There’s no place where you can go 24/7/365 and there’s always live music happening. Like Coachella 24/7.”
The company has five people who have been working for about three months. Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff, venture capitalist Terry Garnett, and Quest Ventures (Marcus Ogawa) are the main investors. Justin Kan, founder of Twitch (when it was known as Justin.tv), is an advisor.
Ampli.Fi has a website, an iPhone app, and 35 artists lined up for the launch.
