$VNUE A Note to VNUE Shareholders from CEO Zach Ba
Post# of 4424
Many of you have been hungry for an update, so I thought I would try to give you a quick overview of the progress the company has made, and it has been substantial. Remember, especially in technology, there are always things going on behind the scenes that may not always warrant a press release.
First and importantly, the StageIt acquisition is still very much alive and we expect we will be closing this deal imminently. It has taken longer than anticipated because of the audit required by the SEC when a private company is acquired by a public company. We are at the one-yard line and everything is looking great. You have probably seen the news release concerning our very successful StageIt Livestream with Rob Thomas, where we combined our technologies like set.fm and in fact even DiscLive to create exclusive packages that were made available to fans. Bringing artists we work with to the StageIt platform is a sign of our dedication to the platform and excitement for its integration into our other offerings. Considering we brought in over $130,000 for Sidewalk Angels Foundation in less than two hours, I would say that this was a great benchmark for how StageIt fits into our strategy and offerings to artists and labels.
In regard to Soundstr, development has continued relentlessly and progress has been incredible. We have been tweaking and testing, and doing extensive work with some of our early-adopter radio stations and physical locations. The latest reports are extremely accurate and extensive one covering several weeks of monitoring without a single glitch. We have several more units being shipped this week for deployment, and recently have identified more physical locations that will be activated.
I also know a lot of you are also anxious about our quest to uplist to the OTCQB, as are we. We are still working on this and getting a lot closer. Let me just tell you it has been an incredible amount of work and has again taken much more time that I would have anticipated, but we have had to answer numerous questions from OTC Markets, and provide them with information and data requested along the way. The most important aspect is that they had been advising us that the convertible debt was too high, even though we have met every other requirement. And, as you know, Ive personally dedicated many hours to help get that debt down over the last several months. At the end of last year,we had convertible notes payable ofabout $1.95mm, and a derivative liability of$3.15mmon our balance sheet. With all of the work that I have done in this area in 2021, including convincing our largest note holder to convert a large portion of it into equity, and to restructure the remaining amount to a straight promissory note, we have now only about $635Kin convertible debt, and importantly, our derivative liability is zero. This is a huge achievement, dramatically reduces potential dilution, and improves the balance sheet significantly. With this last piece of the puzzle, they have only requested one more bit of data, so my hope is we cross the finish line soon!
Finally, our live music business is looking up after having to take an unwanted break because of the pandemic. As you know, the live music industry was decimated, and is just now starting to bounce back. The good news is that there are a lot of artists looking for additional revenue that can be generated, and VNUE is an ideal position to do this, with set.fm, StageIt and DiscLive. We are actively scouting new tours and have the Matchbox Twenty world tour on the books which originally was slated for 2020, but now for 2022. As more people get vaccinated, we expect the live music market to gradually continue to open up and with that, more opportunity for our technologies to be leveraged. And, for those artists still reluctant to tour, StageIt is the ultimate monetization platform, ready to answer the call.
All in all, there are great things happening, and after five years of my being at the helm, the company is starting to really get its legs. Stay tuned, and as I like to quote the late great Steve Jobs, Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Because you cant change the world unless to take the chances to do it.
Thank you for your support and belief in VNUE!
Zach Bair
CEO