Colin Fitzpatrick is a 20 year veteran of the tech industry having a distinguished career working for companies such as Oracle, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Dell, in roles spanning Sales, Marketing, Programs & Management. He has a real passion for people, leading teams and working with high-growth businesses.
Originally from Ireland but now living in Dubai, Colin has always had a keen interest in the technology space but has been fascinated by the Crypto space since he first became a Crypto convert in 2015. His other main passion is music, having been a DJ and club-night organizer for many years – Colin has fantastic energy and enthusiasm with everything he does.
I interviewed Colin Fitzpatrick, CEO of Animal Concerts, about disrupting the concert industry, what the platform does, investment details, their competitive edge, and what’s coming next.
1. Disrupting the live concert and online entertainment model is a large undertaking. How do you plan to do this, and what support do you have from existing celebrities and organizations?
Colin Fitzpatrick: We’ve already garnered a lot of support from celebrities in the music and live concert industry. The top 4 management companies in the world, WME, United Talent, CAA, and Paradigm, have already approached us as leaders in the Metaverse live concert space. Live concerts have been hosted with Busta Rhythms, Future, and Alicia Keys. The celebrity angle is huge and we expect to establish contracts with performers that already have large audiences, offering them a 50% split of proceeds from NFT and ticket sales.
This new form of revenue distribution is a huge incentive for artists to join our platform. We also plan to sell tickets via Ticketmaster, Eventbrite, and Resident Advisor. We’re not merely disrupting the existing model, but enlarging it and making it more dynamic. People who would not be able to make a concert due to the cost and geographical restrictions can now access it using their smartphones.
2. How will Animal Concerts enhance the experience for both performers and viewers?
Colin Fitzpatrick: Performers benefit from being able to host concerts that reach anyone in the world with a device and internet connection. They also benefit from being fairly rewarded for what they do with a 50% split. Concerts are not canceled due to bad weather and fees are not taken up due to the many complexities of renting a huge space for a live concert. It also opens up numerous revenue opportunities not available through the traditionally fixed and centralized system.
Viewers will be able to access live concerts more cheaply while the experience itself will be greatly enhanced. The concert will go live into 2D and 3D metaverses. 360° cameras on stage coupled along with a VR headset gives fans a truly immersive experience – from their own rooms. With VR augmentation, the live concert will be taken to another level, though there is still some way to go with this.
3. How are participants rewarded in the new ‘Watch-2-Earn’ revenue generation?
Colin Fitzpatrick: The Watch-2-Earn model has yet to be fully clarified and we’re still working on it. What I can tell you is that it’s going to be achieved through our partnership with Netvrk, a metaverse built on the Unreal Engine. We will give customers that capability to monetize their NFTs. There are multiple creative ways to reward customers for what they watch and how they participate in the Metaverse. For example, while they will have to pay for concerts, they might get a free NFT or ANML rewards allocation depending on how many they fully attend and participate in.
4. Can you tell us a little about your recently closed private funding round?
Colin Fitzpatrick: We raised $6.75 million from a number of investment firms including ZMT Capital, Maven Capital, Metrix Capital, Magnus Capital, Skybridge20, Arkn, Amesten Capital, Greenhorns Capital, Interstellar Ventures, Brotherhood VC, and Sheesha Finance. Notable private investors included Alex Smirnov, Heslin Kim, Theodore Agranat, and Yuen Ho Wong. These funds are mainly being allocated towards the pursuit of top-tier artists for metaverse events as well as NFT drops, marketing, ecosystem development, liquidity provisioning, and team expansion. It also helps to establish connections with these investors with a potential for further growth.
5. Can you explain the recent Animal Concerts offerings on five project launchpads?
Colin Fitzpatrick: We launched on five decentralized project launchpads – Starter, Polkabridge, Synapse Network, Fire Starter, and Vent Finance. A total of about $800k was raised on these launchpads and the price for the ANML token was $0.0045. These offerings took place between the 12 through 20th of January. These launchpads were useful in securing high-quality long-term investment as investors have to meet specific requirements to purchase the tokens. It also helps with marketing exposure given the launchpads are well known with large audiences across socials.
While all of these decentralized launchpads help with raising funds, each brings something unique to the table. PolkaBridge is a protocol built on Polkadot that is very community-focused while Vent Finance is a Cardano-Polygon bridge that has very strong KYC and due diligence mechanisms.
6. NFTs, VR, live concerts, celebrities, cryptocurrencies, advertising, gaming, metaverses – it’s quite an undertaking. What advantages do you have in a competitive industry where projects are shouting for exposure?
Colin Fitzpatrick: That’s a good question. We certainly have a lot on our plate, but we have multiple advantages that other projects do not. First, we’ve already hosted concerts with Busta Rhythms, Future, and Alicia Keys. These artists don’t sign lightly. Secondly, we have already been very successful in our decentralized and private equity fundraising. We have excellent partnerships and powerful financial backing. Third, is that this market is extremely lucrative due to current geographical restrictions, as evidenced by a large amount of research and statistical data. Live concert revenue has fallen but customers still want to attend musical events – they just can’t because the platforms are not easily available and accessible to them.
We don’t have as much competition as you might think. We’re seeking to disrupt an industry and there are no established companies in the online entertainment metaverse. We think of it as bringing people around to the idea of live concerts in a 3D metaverse as opposed to beating the competition. The market share is huge and there for the taking, once people come on board. With Animal Concerts, we are all about building our ecosystem of more partners so that collectively we can support the revolution of taking the music industry into Web 3.0.
7. Do you have any details with regard to upcoming events such as live concerts, NFT drops, next steps, etc?
Colin Fitzpatrick: For starters, we have a massive NFT drop in collaboration with an A-list artist happening in the next few months. You don’t want to miss out on this drop. We’re talking digital AND physical NFTs! Next, we’ll be releasing our own exclusive Animal Concerts NFT collection which will support our ecosystem and bolster more amazing utility for the community. We’re in talks with many artists and DJs at the moment so we can’t wait to publicly announce all of this once we sign and ink these deals.
