Discord-focused fanbase-development and -monetization startup Levellr has announced a $1.75 million raise, brought on a new chairman, and disclosed expansion plans for 2025. Photo Credit: Alexander Shatov
About 14 months after scoring a $1 million pre-seed round, Discord-focused fanbase-development startup Levellr has announced a $1.75 million raise.
London-headquartered Levellr, which says its north of 65 clients include both Warner Music and Universal Music, just recently disclosed the newer capital influx. According to the three-year-old business, execs from companies including Riot Games, Amazon, and Discord itself participated in the round and are poised to provide valuable “insights and connections” moving forward.
Now with 22 team members across the U.S. and Europe, Levellr says it intends to take its operations “to the next level” with the fresh funding. Those plans include forthcoming support (expected to arrive sometime next year) for Reddit. As things stand, Levellr software integrates directly into Discord and Telegram, per higher-ups.
Closer to the present, SuperAwesome founder Dylan Collins has come aboard as chairman. Elaborating on the move in a long-form LinkedIn post, Collins touched on the perceived commercial potential of Discord for brands.
“The ‘why Levellr?’ question is maybe best answered with ‘why Discord?’,” Collins wrote in part. “Discord continues to grow (now ~200m MAU), especially in interesting verticals (gaming, music, sport, crypto, AI) but fundamentally propelled by the Gen Z/Alpha demographic rotation*** which is still early.”
Bringing the focus back to the core industry, different platforms with generally young userbases, chief among them Roblox, have proven lucrative on multiple levels in recent years.
Coldplay made its way into the digital world with a promotional effort last month, but October’s headlines weren’t entirely positive for Roblox. And Fortnite, the userbase of which is reportedly a bit older than Roblox’s, has welcomed Weezer, Snoop Dogg, and several other artists during the past month alone.
Meanwhile, the broader superfan-monetization space – based on Levellr’s declaration that “a Discord user can be six times more valuable than a non-Discord user,” there’s considerable overlap here – is receiving more attention than ever from the music sphere.
At the points’ intersection, August saw Amazon Music dive into Discord with a “Listening Party” activity. Additional fanbase-development strategies yet, on Discord and elsewhere, are presumably forthcoming in the final stretch of 2024 and particularly the new year.