PledgeMusic co-founder and former CEO Benji Rogers penned an open letter after it was announced that the troubled crowdfunder would be filling for bankruptcy. “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,” said Rogers, “but I am sad to report that this effort has not met with success and that PledgeMusic will shortly be heading into administration.”
[MORE: PledgeMusic To Enter Administration As Sale Falls Through]
Benji Rogers’ full letter
To all of those affected by the situation at PledgeMusic, I wanted to share an update to my last posts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have seen recent media articles criticizing the business model of crowdfunding 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.
I would have given anything to have been able to fix Pledge. I thank my former team at DotBC and my current team at Lark42 for giving me the time to work on this and I thank all of you artists, managers, lawyers, labels and investors for bearing with my less than satisfactory answers to your absolutely valid questions.
If you are an artist that Pledge worked with please make sure that you download your data from the platform here.
If you are a fan please make sure that you download your past releases archive from here.
Once again, I am truly sorry that it has come to this.
Benj
