Mozes, which recently raised $11.5 million, is trying to make money by charging big labels fees to manage their mobile marketing campaigns. At the moment, Mozes makes money by charging musicians as low as $2,000 to musicians, with the exception of indie bands, monthly fees to create a campaign to build up a fan base.
Charging promoters and marketers to use the Mozes service is at “the heart of the business model,” said Dorrian Porter, Mozes CEO and founder. Mozes currently works with 4,000 independent artists and about 50 music labels, including Sony BMG’s RCA Records and Zomba Label Group. Mozes enables the artists to get fans to join lists to keep updated on their whereabouts, or to win backstage-passes at concerts. For consumers, they pay for the service when they text to find out information. Mozes doesn’t share in those fees. To date, Mozes has about 700,000 unique U.S. mobile phone users who get updates on their phones about their favorite bands.
But Mozes isn’t just about music. “Music is really our first vertical,” said Dorrian, in our interview. Dorrian sees Mozes as a mobile marketing platform for entertainment companies seeking to market all their talent or programs. As for monetization, Dorrian says at some point, he believes Mozes can be a conduit for sales of CDs or DVDs. He hopes to get a cut of that too.
