With its potential troubles behind it, having reached a deal to stream music while staying afloat financially, it looks like Pandora is getting flush with cash. The Internet streaming radio service has raised a new $35 million round of funding, multiple sources told peHUB earlier, and we’ve just confirmed the round with the company.
Pandora is being mum on the huge number, but is saying that Greylock Partners led the round and that Greylock partner David Sze will be joining Pandora’s board. Greylock joins existing investors Crosslink Capital, Walden Venture Capital, Labrador Ventures, King Street Capital, Hearst Corporation, DBL Investors, and Selby Ventures in the funding.
Assuming the $35 million is correct, that’s a huge numer and actually more than all of Pandora’s previous rounds combined. Pandora had previously raised slightly over $20 million, but the last round was in 2005.
But this new funding comes when Pandora expects to be profitable by next year, and is coming off its best quarter in terms of ad sales yet. “New funds will be used toward the continued growth and development of Pandora” is all the company will say on how they plan to use this large chunk of change.
This is no doubt a case of investors hopping on board now that the skies seem clear for Pandora. It’s one of the most popular streaming radio services, and the fact that it looks on the verge of making money is a good sign.
[photo: flickr/dan4th]
Half the Pandora leadership team was changed leading up to this deal:
http://www.exec....com/c/r/218/2/
Something is definitely cooking up in Pandora ..let’s make some predictions
Wow – congrats to the Pandora team & Walden.
It seems like just a few weeks ago their CEO was worried they would have to fold as a result of the high licensing fees! Crazy change of fortune.
Awesome!
I wish Pandora the best of luck! However much money they have gotten, it’s just good to have someone (an investor) who shows that they care enough to help them out. I was getting worried for a bit!
never fear. Greylock are always willing to pony up.
I wonder how this affects the negotiations Spotify to appear in the US.
This is awesome. Hopefully they can stop the Canadian passport ads now.
yay Tim W!
Congrats Pandora. Hopefully you can afford not to run the Canadian passport ads now.
can somebody throw some of this startup $$ in my bank account…lol
congrats pandora! You guys deserve it…seriously one of the largest round A’s for a non hardware company ever.
Yay for Pandora and yay for me! I get to keep listening to my Pandora stations.
Pandora is great. Glad that they are going to be IN the money!
Hahahah… how in the gods name do these guys think to make this money back???
They’d need a $200M exist to break even and for founders to see a dollar!
Pandora has never made any profit and for them to start making $20M in profit to justify $200M valuation is next to impossible.
These VCs are smoking some powerful mary jane… there’s no other way to explain it.
Because its a disruption to standard radio and $200M isn’t impossible if you consider the revenues of standard radio and how much of those advertising dollars Pandora can snag now that its legal, its licensed and has a long future ahead of it.
If Pandora realizes its business aspirations, it will become a $1b takeover from Clearchannel
disruption? that explains why the homepage is blank. 8am 7-11-09.
internet radio? what can they offer that other radio networks cant? they better “pull a seesmic” and change their whole game plan ASAP. somethings very fishy here.. i smell a rat. insider trading maybe?
I really don’t think algorithms should be recommending me music. I’d like to know what my friends are listening to. Prime reason for a startup of mine….throw some of that VC $ over here
Great Job pandora
David Sze is my hero.
As much as I like Pandora, that seems like way too much money. Basically the market is open to anyone. Pandora’s algorithms have never struck me as very impressive.
I really, really wish they start offering their services in India..they wouldn’t even give me a pro account for use in India. Loved it when I was in the US
No access for Australians – a lot of people don’t realize that you can only get Pandora in the USA.
Terrific service by the way.
That’s a lot, wish you the best of luck.
Great job!
Wat to go Pandora. The first music ‘genome’ type project on the Web that I ever used and by far the best.
How much is the entire radio advertising market worth (both online and regular radio) in the US?
Perhaps with the propagation of USB ports in car audio systems, we’ll see people using their iPhones as the radio provider of choice inside their cars (through Pandora, perhaps).
Perhaps Pandora should look at a physical add on/device that will allow people to listen to Pandora while in the car. Because the car radio is the real big market.
iPhone + Pandora app in my car has been my primary use case. Big opportunity.
Good for Pandora. I love the service. It makes “old radio” unlistenable. I’ve been hearing more in stream ads. Would love to understand their revenue mix. Lots of potential to say the least.
why do people like pandora? it’s the wost service. It barely knows anything not mainstream. I mean, if i want to hear Bad Religion why do they play nickelback? Lame.
That’s the best thing about pandora. it learns from your feedback. thumbs down on songs that suck to you, and it learns your personal style. It stops playing those songs or artist.
Yeah, their selection can grow and they do sometimes have too many repeats, but I have discovered a ton of great bands and songs via pandora.
Radio via pandora is no longer a passive process.
It gets better the more your interact with it.
If we learned one thing from the dot-com era… it’s that too much money can be a bad thing. Too many hands (opinions) in the cookie jar.
What to expect next… in this order:
1. More ads in free version
2. Subscription rate increase for Pandora One
3. Declining listener base
I would have paid up for Pandora One until I found out that you couldn’t skip as many times as you wanted to. Basically tells me that the industry is still trying to control what I listen to (i.e. force me to listen to the crap-du-jour) even if I offer to pay. It’s like the cable TV scam. You pay for the privilege of watching their commercials.
Pandora is already a sort of six degrees of pop music.
Please enter an artist or a song:
Bob Dylan
…
…
…
You may also like Britney Spears
I subscribe to Slacker Radio which offers unlimited song skips and makes the service incredible. The Pandora subscription still has the 6-skip per hour limit. That just doesn’t cut it for me. Why would you pay for that?
And hey, they have my $36 now too. Please add me to the investment list, k?