Skillbox: A platform to showcase artists and their talent

By Riya Sethi

As a guitarist, Anmol Kukreja was always keen on showcasing his skills to the world and was looking for a platform where he could display his talent. Much to his surprise, he realised that there was no unified platform for musicians and other artists where they could exhibit their talent and get discovered by the public and businesses. And that is what led to the genesis of Skillbox in 2016.

“With the live event market being highly fragmented in the country and no uberisation of artist management happening then, it was difficult for artists to get discovered. And being a music enthusiast myself, I always wanted to provide a platform that would help musicians and other artists to display their talent to the world. Putting my technological expertise to use, I figured a way by which the new-age tools could bridge the gap between the artists and clients and came up with the idea of starting Skillbox,” says Anmol Kukreja, co-founder and CEO, Skillbox.

Founded by Anmol Kukreja and Ravi Pardhi, Skillbox is an art social network for artists, art-related businesses and art enthusiasts, focused on bringing the community of artists from across the world come together. The startup helps artists—including musicians, bands, DJs, producers, session artists, photographers, designers, and sketch artists—to connect with enthusiasts and businesses. “Artists have various requirements ranging from gaining publicity and technical needs to monetisation and landing the right gigs. Skillbox serves as a platform that addresses all such needs of an artist, whether established or upcoming,” informs Kukreja.

Focused on bringing about transparency to the whole ecosystem of an artist’s business, Skillbox leverages the use of data sciences to generate insightful trend reports that help in accelerating the careers of artists. An ideal platform to explore verified and talented artists, people looking to organise events can select an artist based on their portfolio, ratings, past work, etc., and book them instantly on fair and mutually beneficial terms. “An artist can create his/her profile on our website free of cost using our ‘Artist’s Profile’ feature and upload their work and build a strong portfolio for themselves. For musicians, we have come up with an audio-streaming service, Streambox, where they can showcase and monetise their work online,” he adds.

The startup secured an undisclosed amount of seed funding from US-based angel investor Sandip Ranjhan in 2018 and is now looking to raise pre-Series A funding.

With over 5000 artists on its platform and having generated over `2 crore worth of business for them in various categories, Skillbox plans to expand to other categories of visual and performing arts including stand-up comedy acts while also entering Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.