SoundCloud, an audio sharing site geared towards music professionals, has closed a €2.5 million (around $3.3 million) funding round led by Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. As part of the deal, Stefan Tirtey of Doughty Hanson will join the company’s board of directors.
We last covered SoundCloud in October, when the site launched in a private beta. Since then it has opened to the public, and now claims 100,000 registered members. The site’s primary function is to help musicians, producers, and other professionals in the music industry share and collaborate around music tracks. These tracks tend to be quite large in size, which makes them difficult to transfer (typically musicians would be forced to resort to FTP or services like YouSendIt, which are hardly ideal for frequent music swapping).
SoundCloud solves this issue, allowing members to swap files without having to download them to listen (you can stream them straight from the SoundCloud servers). Musicians can also optionally allow their peers to download their tracks, and can use the site’s analytics to see who has listened to them. The site also offers an embeddable music player that musicians can distribute across the web (example below) which allows users to leave a comment directly on a portion of a song (for example, I could append a comment in the song’s timeline stating that I liked a certain guitar solo).
soundcloud is mad useful. all my frens in the industry have been using it.
http://www.kidculprit.com
Seems like a really nice service, makes me wish I were a music professional!
nice! soundcloud is a pleasure to use.
Sounds like a TuneRooms.com knock-off. Too bad TuneRooms did not get on the ball earlier. They had a chance.
Two steps forward for independent music professionals…Nice!!
its not difficult to transfer large files if you have a good internet connection
yeah i know, that’s what’s so funny.
Looks like SoundCloud could be useful but if you just want to transfer files, Otengo (www.otengo.com) would be a good bet. It makes large file transfers much simpler than services like ftp or YouSendIt.
Quote:SoundCloud solves this issue, allowing members to swap files without having to download them to listen (you can stream them straight from the SoundCloud servers).
How is streaming not a form of downloading?
Because it allows you (if streaming is done well) to skip to the point where you want to listen to. And you do not have to wait until the file has fully downloaded to play.
Actually the more interesting part of the article is not the streaming part, which indeed is quite trivial, but the collaborative aspect of the service. I wonder how they tackle copyright issues on samples if they allow people to add/modify the music. Does it come with a “creative commons” type of license?
It’s up to the artist/label to pick the license on SoundCloud, and yes, it supports CC licenses as well.
This is great news! Though I do not produce I am a big fan of a lot of good DJs on soundcloud. Good to see this service continue!
Congratulations! Great news. Makes me optimistic again…
This is great news! SoundCloud is a great service!
One of the most interesting things for me is to see how the SoundCloud platform will develop as more and more people build 3rd party applications and integrations using the API.
Congratulations – SoundCloud is truly a great service!
Congratulations with the A-round investment! Let’s connect in the near future.
Soundcloud seems to be quite a hit in dance music. I came across it after seeing lots of artists using the dropbox feature for promos, signed up, and athough I’m still new, I can see great potential there. Great to see they have funding.
This has been tried before by several companies and I can see several challenges.
1. Rocket Network tried this and failed. They were a late 90’s startup founded by Thomas Dolby that was sold for a song in 2003 to Digidesign to become Digidelivery, who also couldn’t make it work so they sold it in 2007 to Asperasoft.com. It’s not exactly a new idea.
2. Musicians are notoriously poor and cheap (cf the massive piracy of music software). How does Soundcloud make money beyond advertising?
3. The few major studios and post houses still spending money are already signed up with Digidesign Digidelivery/Asperasoft so there is plenty of competition in the small professional market for such a service. As a result, SoundCloud looks like they are targetting the bedroom musicians, which takes you back to #2. How do you make any money out of them?
I did like the voiceover on their promo video though.
OK – it’s a Freemium model. They are charging from 9 Euro’s a month to 399 Euro’s a year for ‘Pro’ accounts.
I bet 99% of those 100,000 users are using the free service. Good luck convincing them to part with enough money to make this profitable and cover those bandwidth costs.
Congrats, SoundCloud! You guys are killlin’ it. And if you don’t mind me saying so, you have the sexiest intro/demo video in the game right now!
I love the soundcloud service. So much that I decided to pay for the service when beta ended. I was double charged and received no service or support when I emailed and posted requesting assistance. I was forced to dispute the double charge at my bank. I still enjoy soundcloud but for the price you pay I feel there should be more service/support.
scibby, sorry you had trouble! Did this get resolved for you? If not please email sales@soundcloud.com and we’ll get it sorted out!
This SoundCloud is destined to fail, they will have to deal with legal issues from SoundLoud.com
This clearly meets a need that exists in the industry, but I’d like to see more discussion around the business model. What does a pro account get you?
soundcloud is cool… i also really like http://playlist.io – which does a lot of the same stuff, but is much simpler
instead of fck’n around; sell your tracks; umakeitcool