Foreman Capital and the City of Amsterdam participate in Fabchannel for € 2.5 million
Former UvA New Media students raise massive investment. Foreman Capital, an independent Dutch investment company, and the City of Amsterdam both take a substantial minority stake of € 1.25 million in Fabchannel. Fabchannel, an online entertainment company based in Amsterdam, has grown into the worldwide market leader for the production, distribution and promotion of audiovisual concert recordings. The accession of these two new shareholders will enable Fabchannel to intensify its production, commercial and promotional activities on an international level.
Fabchannel is the largest live music platform in the world. With more than 800 full-length concert recordings permanently online and live webcasts of concerts in Paradiso and Melkweg Amsterdam it brings music fans all over the world the best live performances around. Fabchannel is a guarantee for unique video content of superb quality. Fabchannel is one of a kind in the way it merges content, development and broadcasting. In the past years Fabchannel has proven the strength of this formula, winning awards like the 2006 Webby Award for ‘best music website in the world’ and the Musikexpress Style Award. The trust shown by Foreman and Amsterdam confirms this once again.
About Fabchannel
For years Fabchannel has been frontrunner when it comes to online video technology and music marketing. An amazing example is Fabchannel’s Fabplayer. It is an advanced video player, which allows users to create their own concert channels and embed them into their website, blog, or social networks like Facebook and Myspace. In this way Fabchannel successfully reaches out to a large audience outside of it’s own website. This is exactly where its target group is. And through the video advertising model integrated within the Fabplayer, Fabchannel offers innovative and powerful advertising possibilities. Because of Fabchannel’s revenue share model this creates a win-win situation for record companies and artists.
In the past years Fabchannel has managed to build up a loyal international following: in 2007 Fabchannel already counted 850.000 active users. Now, with the arrival of this powerful alliance, Fabchannel is ready to let the world know it’s there.
Investments in Fabchannel
With the new investment Fabchannel is going to build High Definition video studios in pop venues in the UK, Germany, Spain and the United States. Besides that it will be tuning up sales and marketing efforts and it will be monetizing video advertising, paid downloads and subscription models.
The first step in this international expansion of Fabchannel is to open an office in London, from which the European music, media and advertising market will be served. Together with record companies, advertising agencies and media partners, Fabchannel will continue to develop new (online) marketing tools, new services for its users and of course record even more great concerts to promote artists and live music.
The participation of Foreman Capital and the City of Amsterdam is the beginning of a new chapter in the existence of Fabchannel. Fabchannel’s aim is to grow out into an independent media company and gain a permanent position in the landscape of live music.
About Foreman Capital
Foreman Capital is an independent, Netherlands-based investment company (founded in 2005 by Arent Foch and Guido ter Kuile) that focuses on European companies that are active in trading, production and services, with an annual turnover of 20 – 80 € million.
Foreman invests exclusively using the capital made available by its directors. Through the combination of active involvement, long-term focus and the investment of proprietary capital, Foreman Capital bears the hallmarks of a classic investment company.
About Paradiso
The internationally renowned pop venue Paradiso was founded in 1968 and is located in a former church building, dating back to 1879. All the greats of pop and rock music have played and still play at Paradiso. Paradiso was the initiator of Fabchannel. At the end of the 90’s, Paradiso noticed how the acts they programmed weren’t getting the media attention they deserved and decided to take matters into their own hands by creating an online channel.
