Social Music Marketplace gogoyoko Raises ISK 100 Million
Despite of the downturn and bad overall economical situation in Iceland, the new social music service gogoyoko (see our previous intro) has secured 100 million Iceland Kronur (slightly more modest in euros: EUR 0,69M; USD 0,89M) in funding from Icelandic The New Venture Business Fund (90 %) and private investor Vilhjalmur Thorsteinsson (10 %).
The purpose of the funding was not disclosed, but in the company's newsletter it is stated that the firm has been growing steadily and just moved to a bigger office. gogoyoko is still looking for more people and prepares for increasing international marketing activities this year. gogoyoko has gotten advice and steering for the fundraising and product development process from Norwegian "New Media Innovation House” Ignitas that also has taken an equity stake in gogoyoko. Ignitas has been previously involved in selling Norway's #2 social network Biip.no to media enterprise Egmont/Nettavisen.
gogoyoko provides artists and other music right holders a social marketplace allowing them to sell music directly to consumers worldwide without middlemen. The service is currently running in closed beta, planned to be publicly opened in April. gogoyoko's service is promised to include interesting features like a custom music player embedable to any site through which the users can stream (ad-funded) tracks and albums for free. The player is also supposed to include a music store interface. On gogoyoko's portal, artists can create their personal sites, write news, blog entries, upload discography, pictures, videos, and enter gig information to gogoyoko's global map.
The firm's updated intro video:
FairChance Lottery Encourages Charity
FairChance is a Norwegian startup introducing a micro-lottery system to be used at online point-of-sales. FairChance's idea is that a consumer in the checkout process of webshops could add a FairChance lottery ticket into the purchase, and get a chance of winning e.g. their shopping basket for free.
This would offer new income to retailers, and, offer new type of fund raising and promotion to charity and humanitarian organizations. That is, FairChance states charity is their leading idea, and the company promises to direct half of the net revenues directly to the different charities they support, currently Red Cross, Right To Play, Diambars, and Save the Children. According to FairChance's web pages they have also signed a few known ambassardors: for example biker Lance Armstrong and football (soccer) player Zinedine Zidane.
FairChance aims to integrate into different webshops and stores, so that when you shop at a supporting store, you will see the FairChance lottery logo next to the checkout. Buying a ticket (or more; each maybe 50 cents or so) gives you a chance to win a top prize (like one year's groceries for the whole family), all the groceries in your shopping cart at the time of purchase, or a smaller prize. The lottery results are shown immediately after the purchase. If you bought a ticket and didn't win, you still know you've supported a number of charity organizations.
For retailers, the value proposition of FairChance is adding high volume items with substantial profit margins into the product catalogue with limited or no cost. The service also allows the brand owners and retail and web shops to participate in charity fund raising. With the system it's also possible to target quickly some specific humanitarian projects, such as a major earthquake disaster.
The concept of FairChance is patented and it has been approved by the Norwegian Gaming and Foundation Authority. According to FairChance their service is not gambling, as has been stated by "international leading experts in this field" (PDF report), based on the relative low prizes and discontinuous nature. It is possible to integrate the company's fund raising service with almost any electronic payment location with a very low cost. FairChance will use the scalability of the concept to address the global market, starting with a roll-out in major European markets this year.
