Vampr is raising at a $9.6 million valuation with no discount. This raise is a follow-on round from another crowdfunding opportunity that Vampr closed in January 2020, which raised just over $1 million at a $6.75 million valuation cap. The current valuation is reasonable given that the company has developed significant traction among users and owns meaningful proprietary technology. However, the company has seen minimal revenue growth since its last raise, and the intervening impact of the global pandemic is concerning. Therefore, Vampr’s price rating is relatively low. 

The entire concept of Vampr relies on the niche of the creative industry, so Vampr’s total addressable market size is significantly smaller than companies appealing to the entire global universe of consumers or businesses. While there are hundreds of thousands of independent musicians in the U.S. alone (likely numbering in the low millions worldwide), some estimates indicate that there are less than 2,000 full-time musicians in the U.S. — and presumably only a few thousand more around the world. 

While creatives certainly do not need to be working full-time on their art to connect in the Vampr social network, that group is the most likely to actually pay money for Vampr’s set of Pro features (including IP representation and wholly-owned distribution on major music services). Assuming that this small core of full-time artists (subtracting those who are represented by a record label) is Vampr’s most likely target customer — plus some portion of the part-time creatives around the world — Vampr’s obtainable market for paying customers numbers in the ten or, optimistically, low hundred thousands. That’s a small market for an early-stage company to attack, so Vampr’s market score is its lowest.

Vampr was founded by two musicians, Josh Simons and Baz Palmer. Simons, the company’s CEO, worked his way up in the music industry for years, collaborating with Travis Scott and Keith Urban and generating tens of millions of streams. He was named to The Music Network’s 30 Under 30 Power List this year. Palmer, Vampr’s co-founder (who is presumably not working full-time on the business), is an Australian Hall of Fame musician who has hit Platinum as a songwriter and guitarist for the band Hunters & Collectors. He has toured onstage for more than 20 years. 

Vampr’s team also includes a CTO, Head of Insights, and Head of A&R (artists and repertoire) with many years of experience working for startups and in the music industry. Overall, Vampr’s team is deeply connected with the company’s target audience and backs up that empathetic understanding with solid business and music industry expertise. Therefore, Vampr’s team score is one of its highest. 

Vampr combines a niche social network with industry-specific creator tools — including IP representation, music distribution, and live streaming. Therefore, the product spans two primary domains with different competitors within each. 

As a social network, Vampr is obviously competing against major incumbents like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even TikTok. Facebook and LinkedIn are arguably the most closely related to the core value that Vampr provides. Those two sites allow people to discover and connect with other individuals based on relatively well-targeted searches (among groups on Facebook and by profession/title on LinkedIn). On the surface, it seems difficult for Vampr to take on these established leaders. However, the app has already won over 500,000+ users, and Vampr’s team has the personal experience to recognize that creatives are not best-served by existing solutions. Therefore, as a niche social network, Vampr is relatively well-differentiated. 

As a suite of creator tools, Vampr is competing against a number of music distribution and publishing platforms, both existing and new. This space is relatively crowded, and all competitors are attacking a fairly small market as it is. Vampr also faces significant competition in its new live streaming vertical, particularly over the last several months. Many event-focused companies have pivoted to focus on streaming in the age of COVID, and other new startups are seizing the opportunity to offer live streaming tools. For example, a new startup called Launch recently raised funds on Wefunder as well. That startup focused exclusively on curating live-streamed performances for indie artists. 

Overall, Vampr has some strong points of differentiation. However, it may struggle to compete among a crowded market on the side of the business that actually generates revenue. Therefore, Vampr’s differentiation rating is middle-of-the-road. 

Vampr’s user acquisition performance has been strong, particularly in recent months since the coronavirus pandemic. The app has welcomed over 500,000 users over the last several years with its free social networking features — a significant success for a niche company like this one. 

Vampr’s financial performance has been less impressive, largely because the company is currently struggling to monetize. Vampr generated just $17,000 in revenue last year, down from over $93,000 in 2018. With the launch of the Vampr Pro subscription for creator tools, the company projects hitting over $780,000 in revenue between October 2020 and October 2021, though these projections are speculative at this point. 

While Vampr’s financial picture is not stellar, the company’s performance on the metrics that arguably matter most to an early-stage mobile app company are strong. Therefore, Vampr’s performance rating is the company’s strongest. 

Vampr has enjoyed clear success as a social network for creatives, and new branding and app functionality have significantly improved user experience in the last several months alone. Vampr seems to have a bright future as the place for creatives to connect and collaborate, but it is not at all clear whether the company will ever achieve success in monetization. 

Vampr only just launched a paid subscription for creator tools earlier this year. It is focused on boosting conversion rate to create more paying customers out of its sizable free subscriber base. However, the market for these paid creator tools is likely very small, and that market is being targeted by a number of competitive companies offering music distribution services, live stream capabilities, and more. 

Therefore, the bearish scenario for Vampr is that the company grows as a targeted social network and collaborative marketplace for creatives, but cannot properly monetize that success to build a sustainable business with returns to investors.

Vampr is a well-recognized brand name among the creative industry. The company’s social networking capabilities have undoubtedly fostered countless productive connections and collaboration opportunities among artists over the last few years. This network for creatives has formed a loyal and active user base. Vampr is now shifting to focus primarily on converting those users into paying subscribers. 

Vampr launched a paid subscription plan (Vampr Pro) in August, and the initial two months of traction have made the company bearish about its future potential to monetize. Vampr Pro has demonstrated a 30.4% 30-day retention rate, with almost 90,000 monthly average users since launch. This early success has sparked revenue projections of over $780,000 within the next year, growing to $2.7 million the next year. 

Vampr is clearly led by an experienced team that is tightly connected to its target audience. This team may well have the potential to become the market leader in creative networking and production worldwide.

Vampr is a niche social network for artists and creators, namely in music. Users can connect and propose collaborations with other users on Vampr. They can also manage key portions of their music career within the app (including IP rights and streaming distribution) while cutting out the gatekeepers of the formal music industry. Vampr’s user traction is impressive, and the company’s team is well-connected to its target market and experienced in entrepreneurship and the music industry. 

However, Vampr may struggle to achieve significant monetization among a very niche target market. It is facing stiff competition from other startups and the established music industry itself. The company has generated very little meaningful revenue in years past. Current revenue projections for the future are speculative off of just a couple months of performance from Vampr’s paid product. Therefore, Vampr has been rated a Neutral Deal. 

For questions regarding the KingsCrowd staff pick or ratings for this company, please reach out to support@kingscrowd.com. 

Analysis written by Katy Dolan.