ArtistWorks.com Announces Series A First Closing and Growth Debt Financing Closing
Online Music Instruction Pioneer Receives Funding to Launch ArtistWorks Online "School of Music"
NAPA, Calif., Oct. 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ArtistWorks, an online music education company, today announced the first closing of their Series A round and the completion of a $1.1M growth debt financing with Montage Capital. The $1.6M Series A funding will remain open to investors through Dec. 31, 2017.
"We are pleased to receive this validation from industry leader Montage Capital and welcome their strategic guidance and funding that will power our expansion into new marketing channels," says David Butler, co-founder and chairman of ArtistWorks.
"We see great potential in the unique ArtistWorks model and are supportive of their move into untapped online learning markets," added Mike Rose, Managing Director of Montage Capital.
These funding rounds provide significant momentum for the company's industry-unique music instruction business that uses their "Video Exchange Learning" to teach music online with 35 world-renowned musicians. An eight-year-old provider of music instruction to hobbyist players, ArtistWorks will now expand its premium quality learning experience to music students in grades 9-12 beginning in the second quarter of 2018. Proceeds from the funding will build and promote the new ArtistWorks "School of Music" online that will be the musical home to existing amateur players and in 2018, high school students. Any musician will be able to enroll in the ArtistWorks Accredited Music Program and receive a Certificate of Completion after successful achievement of the requirements. High school students will be able to earn course credit for learning to play a musical instrument online at ArtistWorks. In May of 2017, the company received academic accreditation as a supplemental education provider from the Accrediting Commission for Schools at the Western Association for Schools and Colleges.
All players seek high-level expertise, but getting meaningful feedback on their performance has been non-existent online until ArtistWorks. Currently, the online music faculty teach players in 80 countries and have recorded over 850 hours of music lessons categorized by instrument and genre. The 35 online music teachers have completed over 50,000 "Video Exchanges®" with their global student body. Each student can submit videos to their teacher who records a video reply, specifically addressing the student's needs. The two paired videos comprise a Video Exchange which the entire online student membership can view and learn from. The Video Exchange Library not only provides an invaluable learning resource for student members, the ever-expanding content is generated at no cost to the company.
"Learning a musical instrument yields worthy academic benefits to teenagers - they learn valuable, lifelong skills. We want to provide that impact on students and to teach the world music," says ArtistWorks CEO Patricia Butler.
ArtistWorks will work closely with Montage Capital to take full advantage of their industry expertise and relationships.
About ArtistWorks:
In 2008, former AOL executive technologist David Butler set out to finally master jazz guitar. With no acceptable teachers in his area, he built a revolutionary online system to enable anyone to get direct feedback from a master teacher anywhere in the world. Founded by David and former financial executive Patricia Butler, ArtistWorks.com is the leader in a new generation of online learning platforms. This patented Video Exchange® Learning platform enables world-renowned musicians to "teach the world music" by providing comprehensive, progressive video lessons and direct, asynchronous video feedback to online students, creating an industry-unique, two-way online learning experience.
About Montage Capital
Since 2005, Montage Capital has provided minimally dilutive growth debt to capital efficient companies. The firm's tailored debt solutions allow companies to make the investments needed for growth while preserving ownership and control for early stakeholders. A unique component of Montage's approach is it does not require prior or current equity support as a prerequisite for funding.
Contact:
Patricia Butler, CEO
ArtistWorks Online Music Instruction
[email protected]
(707) 255-1840
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SOURCE ArtistWorks
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