Trailblazers is an MBW interview series that turns the spotlight on music entrepreneurs making waves in their local markets, who have the potential to become the global business’s power players of tomorrow. This time, we speak to Steve Rhodes, Co-Founder and CEO of UK-based ‘vinyl-on-demand’ startup, elasticStage. Trailblazers is supported by Believe .
Vinyl records are one of the particular music industry’s biggest comeback stories.
Once on the verge of being relegated to history’s list of obsolete technology, sales of the format are now thriving in the streaming age and growing within major markets.
In the US, for example, according to the mid-year revenues (on a retail basis) from vinyl albums grew 22% to $570 million, while vinyl’s share of the physical market increased through 68% in order to 73%.
In the UK, as of September 2022, year-to-date, vinyl cds generated retail revenues of £80. 9 million, up 12. 2% YoY, according to stats published simply by the Entertainment Retailers Association.
Indeed, vinyl has become so popular with music consumers that manufacturers are coming under increased pressure to keep up along with growing demand.
One company that believes it has the solution to long lead times in the vinyl fabric manufacturing space is UK-based elasticStage.
The on-demand vinyl company raised £3. 5 million in a seed round earlier this year (and is about to launch a series A Round), attracting investment from prominent industry figures like producers Paul Epworth ( hire songs industry veteran Raoul Chatterjee (the ex-Vice President, Content Partnerships & Operations at SoundCloud) as its new Chief Operating Officer.
elasticStage’s co-founders Sam Rhodes (CEO) and Werner Freistaetter (CTO) are both former musicians and engineers.
Rhodes tells MBW that the business aims in order to “completely eliminate the costly and lengthy setup process for vinyl” and that “it was a no-brainer that many artists (beginners, professionals plus post-major record deal artists) would love the way to seamlessly sell physical products to fans with no upfront cost – similar to what TEMASEK HOLDINGS SINGAPORE. Tell us about your production partner and the particular role they’re playing in scaling upward your company?
The biggest challenge after going through the pains associated with developing the particular core technology, was exactly how can all of us build enough of these machines reliably in a very short period of time. We knew that the demand pertaining to our product would become huge. All of us approached a single of the particular global leaders in mechanical engineering plus automation that also works for Tesla, using the ultimate aim of scaling up and rolling out large production centres. They usually only work along with big multinational corporations plus it was a daunting task to convince them to work with us on this project. I flew out for a presentation over two years ago and not just did these people believe in exactly what we had been doing and the potential meant for it in order to be internationally game-changing, among the founders made a private investment within elasticStage upon the spot. That was the big turning point. However, I do want to reiterate that elasticStage nevertheless owns almost all of the IP and they are usually only assisting us in order to build our own dream. The new facility will be the future R& D facility for the on-demand technologies. Nearly we all offer on-demand vinyl, but also on-demand CDs at an unprecedented level of quality. CDs may not end up being as sexy as vinyl fabric, but are still an essential and important product. If you can make a whole catalog available this will enjoy a profitable future. Last year, the CD market had been growing just for the 1st time within almost 20 years. Our R& D service will furthermore serve as the particular launch pad for a limited commercial roll out of our platform in the second half of 2023. At the moment we are usually identifying who else will be the partners that have first access. Even with the smaller capacity that we offer at that will facility, we can solve a massive headache for a label who, for example , needs the few thousand vinyl product sales “today” to get in order to number 1 within the charts! This will create a huge difference to them. In 2024 we will transition the production/fulfilment in order to larger facilities in the particular UK as well as the US with all the London facility serving as the hub for our engineers to refine, develop and maintain the technology for the factories. Yes, as I pointed out earlier, we want to open facilities in the US by 2024. Europe and the USA are the biggest vinyl markets, responsible for 90% globally. At the particular same time, there is huge potential for vinyl fabric in Asia and CDs are still a multi-billion business in places like Japan and South Korea.
You launched a new facility in the UNITED KINGDOM this year – show about the planning that’s gone into launching the service, what a person do there, and your own ambitions designed for it?
Are there plans to expand to locations outside the UK?
You elevated £3. 5m earlier this year. Are usually there programs to raise more in the near future?
