Fan-facing platform Fave will now allow artists and their teams to discover and communicate directly with their most loyal followers.
Fave (faveforfans.com) is tapping into the superfan community, which Goldman Sachs’ influential Music In The Air report estimated will be worth $4 billion by 2030.
The platform is specifically designed for the superfan ecosystem, based on an app available for Android and Apple that captures and rewards fan activity. It also hosts industry-facing tools capable of understanding the specific attributes of individual fandom, in order to strengthen artist strategies.
The start-up recently secured another $2 million in an ongoing funding round, which is expected to surpass a total of $6 million.
The company has now launched its new industry-facing tool called FanFinder, which is supported by proprietary AI.
FanFinder gathers key insights from Fave’s knowledge about fan’s activities to help artists identify their most ardent followers. For example, the platform will be able to pinpoint who’s been listening to an artist’s music for long periods, as well as those making fan art, going to every show on the tour, creating their own merch, or organising support for a new release and engaging on Fave with other fans.
FanFinder will make it possible to identify dedicated fans in specific markets or with specific interests. Fave has already onboarded teams that represent global artists.
Several major institutional investors are increasing their investment in the start-up, including Warner Music, Sony Music and Female Founders Fund.
The growth of Fave comes amid a growing industry trend for artist teams to use tools and platforms to target fans more effectively, as well as the rise of platforms such as Discord as a destination for fan communities.
We made Fave a place for fans where they can be fully empowered, find each other, and immerse in their passions
Jacquelle Amankonah Horton
“The direct connection means no more algorithmically-driven social feeds that reach 2% of followers when the artist is trying to reach their fans,” said a statement. “Fave knows exactly who the most passionate and valuable fans are, where they are located, what motivates them, and then offers a direct line of contact to them.”
“We made Fave a place for fans where they can be fully empowered, find each other, and immerse in their passions,” said Fave founder and CEO Jacquelle Amankonah Horton. “Now, we’re bringing creators into the mix, so that they too can understand the best ways they can engage with and empower their fandom through real-time insights about each fan that they’ve never been able to see at this level of detail and authenticity. They can find specifically who they want to engage for every cool experience they have and make it happen.”
“The Fave team’s decade-plus years of experience of bringing the power and ease of AI against billions of powerful audience data points makes this all possible,” added Horton, citing her history at Google leading several AI analytics products for YouTube Creators and Artists.
Fave gathers fan information and lets artists search by certain parameters. Artists can use AI and natural language to find the answer to helpful questions, such as who the most active fans are in a specific city.
Once FanFinder has been employed to uncover a key group of fans, an artist and team can message them with ticket and VIP meet-up offers, as well as an opportunity to react to new or unreleased music. The communication stays within Fave, and fans can opt out if they would prefer, in order to protect fan privacy.
As well as saving time that would have been spent manually going through data and social media, the platform can reveal insights into who is engaging, how, and why.
New investors to Fave include music industry veteran Lyor Cohen, Shiva Rajaraman (CBO of OpenSea, former VP of commerce at Meta and VP at Spotify), Alexandra Moore (CBO at Empire, former GM at Amazon), Gen-Z expert and gaming investor Faye Maidment as part of the Atomico Angel Program, and Switzerland-based investors Alberto Cozzi and Mario Andrea Cozzi. Several funds also joined the latest round, including Xoogler.co (a selective fund investing in former Google employee startups), Goodwater and Gaingels.
“FanFinder makes Fave’s model applicable far beyond the music industry,” added Horton. “In fact, we’ve built something relevant to any brand or business that wants to scale their effectiveness in impacting the top 20% of customers. That’s exactly the wide-reaching path Fave plans to chart ahead across multiple vertical market sectors.”
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