Fan-funding online music platform Slicethepie has quietly raised a £1 million round of funding - what it says is its “third” round, all in all. Backers were not revealed but commercial director Paul Brown said the funds will be used to work on upcoming partnerships and to generally steer a steady course through the worsening 2009 economic climate.

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Slicethepie’s funding history is sketchy but the company says it had already got an angel round and a seed round. Slicethepie got a £1.5 million angel in June 2007 and a $2 million seed in March 2008. It’s thought this latest round will finance it over the next 12 to 14 months. Slicethepie invites music fans to invest in and spot talented upcoming acts from a grassroots community. Slicethepie is trying to win A&R-style partnerships with a variety of companies.

Slicethepie’s aim is to return fan-invested money to acts that pass a trigger threshold of financing. In its business model, the site would get a slice of digital sales from acts whose material proves popular enough to go through online retail; it also hopes to win a slice in artists’ other revenue streams and pays its community users for reviews. Slicethepie also recently launched Soundout, a service that sells its community’s views and ratings on songs to labels and artists.