Sanil Chawla remembers the conferences he had with numerous artists in school. These creatives have been in search of one factor: sustainable financial infrastructure that might assist them scale somewhat than drown them in paperwork, filings and monitoring down receipts.
Chawla thought he may need an answer and launched a music monetization platform in 2020. Through the pandemic, he pivoted the corporate into what it’s right now: Slingshot, which helps creatives discover the instruments they should handle operational necessities. It even presents its personal company card to assist additional centralize monetary transactions into its platform.
“Too many gifted creators right now are pressured to spend numerous hours navigating the advanced monetary and enterprise challenges of being self-employed,” Chawla informed TechCrunch. “Our aim is to leverage expertise to dramatically simplify these duties, empowering creatives to give attention to what they love.”
On Monday, the corporate introduced a $2.2 million pre-seed spherical, with participation from Dorm Room Fund, 1916 Enterprises, Key Companions Group, and angel investor Vincent Francoeur, former head of net and cellular at Blizzard.
Slingshot emerged within the wake of the booming $250 billion creator economic system, however it’s not the primary firm to try to construct out infrastructure for this bustling economic system. It says it differentiates itself by centralizing its options and knowledge, providing automated bookkeeping linked to its enterprise card. It additionally works with banks to facilitate monetary transactions, permitting creatives to handle their funds, make transfers, and ship funds. Its main BaaS associate for buyer accounts is Stripe via its Treasury and Issuing applications.
It presents different options like letting creatives save a proportion of their income and providing advantages like healthcare and retirement. It acts like HR and handles authorized submitting and tax paperwork. Chawla, now 24, mentioned it took 4 years to lift the pre-seed spherical because the firm raised in batches. It took smaller angel checks in 2020 after which pivoted to its present iteration in 2023.
Slingshot began as an organization that offered authorized and monetary infrastructure to musicians to develop their audiences with no label, and in a means that also lets artists management a bulk share of their royalties. It raised $50,000 from that concept, then one other $1.2 million to construct it out. In late 2022, the corporate pivoted. Its prospects needed extra of a monetary product, and Slingshot adopted what the purchasers have been asking for. It then spent final yr and this yr fundraising to shut a further $1 million in funding, bringing the corporate to the place it stands right now.
Trying forward, Slingshot has bold plans. It intends to lift funds once more within the coming yr, leveraging the $2.2 million pre-seed spherical to boost its function choices. This contains the event of an AI assistant, with the purpose of revolutionizing how creatives handle their operations. Chawla mentioned that higher instruments and infrastructure for the inventive economic system might help allow extra creativity and various creative expression. “We’re nonetheless early within the journey, however I’m impressed by the affect we’ve had thus far and all of the potential forward to take action rather more,” he mentioned.
This piece was up to date to mirror the spelling of Vincent Francoeur‘s identify.
