Rapchat, an app to create and share raps, has raised $1.6 million in funding. The Columbus, OH based startup is consistently among the top 50 music app on iOS and Android and has passed 100 million listens since launching in 2013.
Rapchat co-founder Pat Gibson has performed with the likes of Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa and Machine Gun Kelly and sold beats to MTV. “My music has garnered over 20M+ plays across YouTube, SoundCloud and more,” he told Techcrunch.
“I grew up loving to freestyle with friends at OU and I noticed lots of other millennials did this too (even if most suck lol) … at any party at 3am – there would always be a group of people in the corner freestyling,” he said. “At the same time Snapchat was blowing up on campus and just thought you should be able to do the same exact thing for rap.”
“I spent a lot of time, energy and resources making music,” he continued. “I was producing the beats, writing the songs, recording/mixing the vocals, mastering the project, then distributing & promoting the music all by myself. With Rapchat, there’s a library of 1,000+ beats from top producers, an instant recording studio in your pocket, and the network to distribute your music worldwide and be discovered…. all from a free app. Rapchat is disrupting the creation, collaboration, distribution, and discovery of music via mobile.”