Kickstarter buys Drip, a community for independent musicians

Kickstarter has made its first acquisition after the crowdfunding site snapped up Drip, a service that lets music artists engage with fans with new work and previews while drawing revenue from the platform.

We wrote about five-year-old Drip last summer, which had become a popular community for independent labels, but the company made the difficult decision to close down last month. That’s being reversed now that Kickstarter has bought it the day before it was scheduled to shut down. The site and service will remain open as founder Sam Valenti explained.

“The [Drip] service, community, and creators will remain active and my co-founder Miguel Senquiz will join the team at Kickstarter to see Drip’s vision through,” he wrote on Medium.

Kickstarter CEO and co-founder Yancey Strickler said many at the company had “admired Drip over the years.”

“At heart, we’ve been on similar paths. Strengthening the bonds between artists and audiences, and fostering the conditions for a more vibrant creative culture is at the core of our work at Kickstarter, too,” he explained.

While Drip will remain open, it isn’t exactly clear whether bringing Senquiz onto the Kickstarter team will see the site increase its focus on creative projects such as a music. Strickler said only that the collaboration will help service the creator audience “more powerfully” — we’ll have to wait and see for more.