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Kim Dotcom planning stock market flotation for Baboom
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 15 July 2014
Kim Dotcom plans to float his new direct-to-fan platform Baboom on Sydney’s Australian Securities Exchange, it has emerged. The company is set to apply for a listing on the Aussie share market later this year.
As previously reported, a demo of the D2F platform, which aims to enable artists to distribute downloads and streams, sell tickets and merch, and monetise their content – if they wish – via advertising, went live at the start of the year with a profile built around Dotcom’s own music.
The company is just completing a AUS$4.5 million investment round, and the prospectus for potential investors offers more information about both the service and the company’s business plan, including the intention to list on the ASE. According to the prospectus, a proper beta period is now planned for Baboom in the third quarter before a full launch towards the end of the year.
While – as a combined download, streaming and direct-to-fan platform – Baboom will operate in three different competitive marketplaces, the start-up reckons that its combined offer, high-quality audio and generous terms to artists will help it succeed. The service will also be promoted to users of Dotcom’s file-storage business Mega.
Of course, the fact that Dotcom himself is facing litigation from both the movie and music industries in the US, in relation to his former file-transfer business MegaUpload, might hinder Baboom’s ambitions, in that labels will be resistant to do business with the new platform, initially at least. And while Dotcom seems convinced there are plenty of independent artists ready to join the Baboom party, previous claims that sophisticated direct-to-fan technologies will render labels redundant have never came true.
But the Baboom documents deal with this concern, noting: “Owing to Kim Dotcom’s MegaUpload heritage, some users and music suppliers may not favour using or engaging with Baboom, and labels may be reluctant to license material. Baboom intends to assure labels and collecting societies they will be appropriately recompensed for all material used. Baboom will also acquire music from friendly major artists and will host original independent artists who choose to upload their own material, creating a new repository of music no matter how much major label material is available”.
