Justin Drape and Michael Canning’s Exceptional ALIEN has met its minimum crowdfunding target in just 48 hours of its two-week-long investment round.
Drape, co-founder of The Monkeys, and Canning, former M&C Saatchi ECD, said that the funding will help scale the multimedia ‘Travel Playbooks’ platform, which was awarded with the Global Industry Innovator for Tourism award at the coveted travel industry Skift IDEA Awards for 2023.
“Exceptional Alien’s Travel Playbooks are designed like a Spotify for travel. They are a personal play-by-play curation of recommendations from exceptional talents around the globe,” said Drape
“When travelling, 92 per cent of people ask trusted friends and family to share their experiences and recommendations, so we want Exceptional ALIEN to feel like travelling with thousands of trusted creative friends and culture makers in your pocket”.
Exceptional ALIEN has picked up major momentum in 2023, including brand partnerships with tourism bodies, booking giant Skyscanner and a major distribution partnership with Modern Luxury Media and streaming platform M/LUX in the US – reaching 150 million US homes, and the growth of a contributing community that now includes Grammy Award winners, Academy nominated actors, Olympic Gold medal winning athletes, Michelin-Starred chefs, entrepreneurs, designers, artists and many more.
Following a previous successful capital raise with seed investors, Exceptional ALIEN is undertaking this community-funding round to invite people in the creative industries to join the platform as shareholders, as the company scales both its media offering and the creative studio offering, Exceptional ALIEN Studio, that is working with major brands.
“Our ambition is to build Exceptional ALIEN as a globally trusted brand in travel, powered by a community of exceptional talent,” said Canning.
“We are thrilled that colleagues from the creative community and astute investors are getting behind the platform, and will be part of our investor group as we scale. Our capital raise closes November 16”.
Notable Australians already featured on the Exceptional ALIEN platform include Flight Facilities (electronic music artists), Maurice Terzini (Bondi Icebergs restaurateur), Ako Kondo (Principal Artist, Australian Ballet), Satu Vanska (Principal Violin, Australian Chamber Orchestra), and Rafael Bonachela (Artistic Director, Sydney Dance Company). Internationally there is Karen Walker (Fashion Designer), Ny Oh (Guitarist in Harry Styles band), Uncle Waffles (International DJ), Safa Sahin (Footwear designer Bottega Veneta) and Paola Antonelli (Senior Curator of MoMA New York).
