PORTFOLIO COMPANY
Pirate
A business offering easy-access, affordable, self-service music studios to artists across the globe
- Pirate leases, owns and operates 737 studios around the world
- It is the world’s leading provider of rehearsal and recording facilities
- Pirate provides 24/7 rehearsal, DJ, recording, podcast and dance studios
- Many studios offer “automated recording” handled by cloud software
- Pirate is building a community of artists, connecting them on and offline
The inside story
Pirate started life in an abandoned police station in Bristol where co-founders David Borrie and Mikey Hammerton, along with their friend Fred Wyatt built a rehearsal studio which they offered to bands on an hourly basis, at affordable rates.
When this met with success, they saw the potential of scaling up the idea dramatically and offering cost-effective, acoustically insulated, self-service music studios which could be rented out to artists in London, New York and Berlin. 3 years later, the company was operating 350 studios in 21 locations and running talent competitions to showcase musicians and DJs.
Why we chose to invest
Edge invested in Pirate, when it had built a community of 250,000 artists and had passed 1 million bookings. We shared Pirate’s vision, to make music creation significantly more socially accessible; aligning with our desire to increase social mobility.
We believe Pirate has great expansion both through their physical footprint and by offering more innovative digital tools.
Tell us what you are building
Edge supports founders from all parts of the creative economy. If you are interested in partnering with us, please get in touch using the form below.