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Benji Rogers returns to PledgeMusic as company attempts to resolve financial issues

By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 30 January 2019

PledgeMusic co-founder Benji Rogers has confirmed that he will return to the direct-to-fan and crowdfunding company on a temporary basis, aiming to help it out of its current financial problems.

It emerged last week that PledgeMusic was still struggling with financial issues that began last year, leading to artists who had run campaigns on the platform not being paid. An executive rejig and new finance system introduced last October was meant to have resolved these issues, but last week a number of artists reported they were still awaiting payment.

As the company issued a statement about the ongoing problems last week, so too did Rogers, who left Pledge a year ago after previously reducing his role there in 2016. In that statement, Rogers said that he had offered the current management team assistance “both strategically and practically”. Help which has now been accepted.

“I have agreed, on a short-term basis, to return to PledgeMusic as a volunteer strategic advisor and observer to the board”, says Rogers in a new statement. “I have been in discussions with the management team and board of Pledge over the last few days and I am convinced that they are committed to fixing the artists payments situation as their first priority. I have seen first hand how tirelessly the team, management and board have been working to right the ship and that is why I have agreed to help where I can”.

PledgeMusic has already said that it hopes to have caught up with late payments to artists within 90 days. Rogers does not give an exact time-frame, but promises that “the first priority for the company is to sort the back payments issue as every penny that is owed to artists needs to get to them in the fastest possible time”. A detailed plan for this, he adds, will be published shortly.

He then says that, in order to avoid situations such as this moving forward, all funds raised through campaigns on the platform in the future will be held by a third party. This, he says, will “ensure that all campaigns that launch going forward, will be paid upon their campaign milestones being reached”.

Also giving no indication as to how long he may be in this temporary role, he finishes: “I will do all in my power to help the team bring this to a successful conclusion for the artists and fans as quickly as is possible. I am deeply sorry to those of you who have been affected by this”.

While doing all of this, Rogers will also remain full time in his post at his current company, music data start-up Dot Blockchain Media.