PledgeMusic co-founder Benji Rogers has confirmed that the company is heading into administration.
In a message to artists who have used the D2C and crowd-funding platform, Rogers apologised for the failure to save the troubled company.
“I went back into PledgeMusic just over three months ago as a volunteer to try and help the board and team turn around and sell the company, but I am sad to report that this effort has not met with success and that PledgeMusic will shortly be heading into administration,” he said. “I cannot begin to appreciate how all of you affected artists are feeling about this and I am deeply sorry for what you have been through.”
Music Week reported this week that PledgeMusic had been in discussions with administrators FRP Advisory.
After the company admitted to serious problems with payments to artists on the platform earlier this year, Rogers returned to the company in an advisory capacity. PledgeMusic was officially put up for sale in February but any buyer would have taken on debt that was reported to be in the region of $3 million.
Staff have left the UK operation in recent months and artists struggled to get any information on payments during the turmoil at the company.
“I ask all of the fans to please understand the awful and near impossible situation that this has put the artists that you love and supported in, and as such I ask you to bear with them as they do their best to make any obligations to you right,” added Rogers. “I am also sorry for all of the labels, fulfillment companies and other vendors affected.
“I feel for all the PledgeMusic team members who did their very best to resolve these issues and have been badly let down while enduring broken promises and physical threats that they did not deserve. There have been no good outcomes here and I cannot bear that something that I created to benefit artists and fans has caused so much pain to so many people.
“I was CEO of PledgeMusic twice, and even though I left for the last time in 2017, I still always felt connected to the company and to the mission. I wanted to be a part of the efforts to get things back on track but it is obvious now that too much damage had already been done."
He added: “I have seen recent media articles criticising the business model of crowd-funding and I feel that these are unfair. A failure in execution does not mean that the model is fundamentally flawed. I still believe that there is a great future for fan-funded projects in this industry and I hope that someone builds a new version of, or resurrects what we started. I would gladly help in this effort.”
Rogers advised artists to download their data from PledgeMusic immediately.
“I am truly sorry that it has come to this,” he said.
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