Hospitality tech startup secures seven figure investment

Northern hospitality tech startup, GigPig, has secured a seven-figure, pre-seed investment as it launches its new gig booking and management platform. The investment will be used to build a sales and customer service team, enabling GigPig to expand its reach and effectively service both its business clients and musicians.

Launched in this year, GigPig enables hospitality venues to book musicians directly, removing third party involvement and plugging into the venue’s operations, finance and marketing departments. Currently the startup is working with the likes of Mission Mars, Arc Inspirations, Crazy Pedros, STACK, Apartment Group, NQ64 and Ramona.

Alongside its ease of use for venues, musicians are able to manage their own live dates through the use of integrated calendar systems and automatic accountancy tools to handle invoicing and payment.

Founded by four entrepreneurs, Michael Forster, Andrew Garner, Kit Muir-Rogers and Ed Francis, GigPig was born from a combined passion for music and hospitality. The online platform has been developed with both musicians and venues in mind, creating a portal that increases opportunities for both parties.

Michael Forster, co-founder and CEO of GigPig, began his career in the music industry over 30 years ago, founding AMV Live Music with Andrew Garner, co-founder and COO of GigPig, in 2010. Today, AMV Live Music books musicians into over 6,500 gigs per year.

Commenting on the new venture, Michael said, “the idea of GigPig came around when one of our large multi-venue clients enquired about bringing their bookings in-house and essentially licensed our existing bespoke booking platform.

“We had a conversation with our fellow co-founder and CSO, Kit Muir-Rogers, who has extensive experience in the hospitality industry and could see the increased need for entertainment bookings in venues following the pandemic. We connected with Ed Francis, co-founder and CTO, who we’ve worked with on our existing AMV platform and the four of us brought GigPig to life.”

The 2020 global pandemic brought severe financial losses for the hospitality and entertainment industries, creating an impact that is still being seen to date. GigPig’s aim is to support both sectors, empowering musicians to manage their own calendars, bookings and invoicing, whilst allowing venues of all sizes to find suitable artists to entertain customers.

Kit added, “the hospitality & entertainment sectors are industries we know and love deeply, they are where our roots lie as a business.These sectors have faced their most challenging trading period ever and are still navigating strong headwinds in a highly testing landscape.”

Michael continued, “music is an integral part of a venue’s offering, but there is a third party outlay that is unnecessary. With the adaptation of technology and industry experience we believe that the future is giving the venues the power to access the artist market and book their own gigs.”

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