Decentralized Audio Streaming Platform Tamago Secures $1M in Seed Round Funding
Investors Include Block0, Move Capital, Daedalus, Human Guild, and Big Brain Holdings
Exclusive In-Platform Album and NFT Drop from Felix Da Housecat, as well as Paramida, Tiga, and more
Reveals Catalog Uploads from Tiga’s Turbo Records, Paramida’s Love on the Rocks, and Founders of Filth
https://www.tamastream.io/
Today, Web3 decentralized audio streaming platform Tamago announced their seed round raise, which reached $1M in funding via Block0, Move Capital, Daedalus, Human Guild, and Big Brain Holdings. The platform, which launched in March of this year, is nearing 1000 tracks on platform with over 700 users and 45,000 minutes of streamed content thus far. Additionally, Tamago announced a trove of exclusive NFTs and music drops coming to the platform this summer, including exclusive content from the likes of Felix Da Housecat, Paramida, Tiga, Deep Aztec, and Rose Bonica.
This fundraising will help Tamago further its mission of putting money in artist’s pockets in new and innovative ways, reimagining the streaming platform model through a mix of Web3 and NFT technology. The groundbreaking platform has issued over $20,000 in payouts between its events, both Metaverse and IRL, and its Top of the Charts liquidity pool which pays out monthly to artists from all over the world.
Chicago house music icon Felix Da Housecat is planning a number of One of One NFT drops throughout the year, including an artist playing card release around his upcoming release on his own Founders of Filth label with Dave The Hustler and renowned artist and Prince’s touring DJ Lenka Paris. Additionally, in October, Felix will be releasing a full album exclusively on Tamago, monetizing exclusively via Tamago’s Web3 technology. Felix will also be uploading the entire back catalog of Founders of Filth to the platform.
Panorama Bar resident Paramida will be doing an exclusive NFT drop on Tamago in June in the lead up to a full body of work coming from her later this summer. The drop will feature an unreleased track bundled with guest list access to all Love on the Rocks events this year including a secret island party at Love International in Croatia this summer. The NFT buyer will also receive the dub plate from Paramida’s upcoming release which will also include the exclusive Tamago track. She is also set to upload the entire back catalog of her Love on the Rocks imprint to Tamago later this year.
Montreal born DJ-producer-incipient Teutonic legend Tiga has also committed to an NFT drop on July 17, and his label, Turbo Recordings, will begin uploading its back catalog to the platform as soon as this month.
Tamago provides artists with a platform on which they can get paid for their streams transparently. The unique nature of the One of One content means that the NFTs are delivered as singles or a collection of tracks that users can not only stream, but buy and add to their profile for other users to listen to and enjoy. Tamago allows buyers to create shareable playlists that they can monetize based on the royalty structure decided upon by the selling artist.
Tamago’s global reach continues to expand and reach underground scenes around the world. Immersive, boutique, South African music festival Wolfkop Weekender will be uploading their entire back catalog of live event recordings, with NFT drops from the likes of blossoming Cape Town-based DJ, producer, live act, and record label owner Deep Aztec, and live electronic act, music producer and visual artist Rose Bonica.
Since the platform’s launch, artist involvement continues to grow and evolve. Scene tastemakers like Visionquest, Desert Hearts, Mioli, Barem’s Fun Records, Mr C, Doc Martin, Desert Hearts, Matthias Meyer and many others have all signed on as sellers on the platform thus far.
Tamago is the official music solution of NEAR Protocol. The platform successfully connected the NEAR wallet to the app at the end of last month, giving artists the freedom to set their own price for downloadable content ranging from songs to limited edition edits, samples, and other exclusive offerings. NEAR’s low gas fees and high speed transaction capabilities make it the ideal blockchain for streaming at high speeds. Tamago’s co-founder Jeff Gold, also the cofounder of the NearHub Metaverse, has been working closely alongside Clarian to deploy the metaverse solution of Tama Island, a virtual version of Tamago, which hosts weekly livestreams and events from artists around the world, NFT treasure hunts and proof of attendance and much more. With future versions of the platform, users will be able to trade, buy and sell their tracks and NFTs on the Tamago app as well as on Tama Island in 3D, host virtual record fairs on TAMA Island, stream exclusive performances, and engage in social community events with interoperable social features.
Tamago co-founder Clarian North remains a pivotal thought leader in the Web3 and NFT music space. Clarian is known in the crypto community as the first artist to ever mint an NFT album, Whale Shark LP, beating out Kings of Leon on OpenSea, March 3rd at Midnight. He has since gone on to have 85,000 developers enrolled in his blockchain courses from building an NFT marketplace on Polygon to the complete Solidity Course Zero to Expert. Clarian remains a seminal figure in the world of underground dance music with timeless productions released on labels like Visionquest, Kompakt, Counter, Turbo, Life And Death, and Rumors and a pioneer for his years of work as an engineer for both Grammy winners and underground legends.
In Clarian’s own words on the platform and fundraise, “It’s no secret that the music industry suffers from an unacceptable lack of transparency in digital revenue that goes back to artists from giant streaming solutions such as Spotify. Independent artists are also suffocating from a gross oversaturation of platform advertisements and private data siphoning which fuel poorly thought-out monetization models.
The landscape of crypto is still very much a Wild West with the Good the Bad and the Ugly rollercoasting along, but one thing I think that’s quite clear is that climate neutral public blockchains such as NEAR provide an unparalleled and much needed potential to give artists back the transparency of their fair shares digitally, while providing healthier online support systems.
Tamago’s focus from day one has been creating a decentralized music platform on NEAR to tackle the problems that hold back independent artists. Our seed round has already further allowed us to continue building out features and empowering local communities with authentic content and events over the past few months while looking giant outdated streaming revenue models in the eye and pretty much telling them to get with the program or f*** off.”
Tamago presents a way forward for independent artists in the modern age of Web3, interlaced with the cultural tenants that make underground music a lasting force across the globe.
Learn more about Tamago here: https://www.tamastream.io/