The Echo Nest Secures $7 Million to Power the Future of Music Applications

SOMERVILLE, Mass., Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company powering smarter music applications for independent developers and leading media companies, announced it has raised $7 million in venture financing. Matrix Partners led the financing with existing investor Commonwealth Capital Ventures also participating. The company plans to use the funds to support growth of its music intelligence platform and expand its team.

The Echo Nest's music intelligence platform, created by two MIT Media Lab PhDs, powers smarter music applications for a wide range of stakeholders in digital music – from independent application developers to the largest media companies in the world.  These stakeholders all face a huge data problem: understanding music content (10 million songs online, 3,000 new songs and 15,000 music reviews added online daily) and understanding music consumers (700,000 unique users accessing music online every minute). (1)

The Echo Nest's machine learning platform actually reads about music and listens to music everywhere on the web, delivering an unprecedented understanding of music content and consumers.  The company's suite of APIs and developer tools enable a wide array of smarter music applications, including music discovery, interactive music games, remix apps and analytics-driven music marketing applications.

"With its music intelligence platform, The Echo Nest has developed a remarkably novel and unique algorithm-based technology to enable new music discovery and consumption experiences in a world that is filled with manual one-off approximations," said Antonio Rodriguez, general partner at Matrix Partners and Echo Nest board member.  "What is more, The Echo Nest enables developers to leverage this work for a wide range of new mobile and social experiences."

"We are very pleased with the strong progress The Echo Nest has made with its product and market development since our initial investment," said Elliot Katzman, General Partner at Commonwealth Capital Ventures. "We are excited to work with Antonio and Matrix, together with the company's management, to build a significant business."

"Data drives the online music economy," said Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest.  "With the strategic and financial support of Matrix and Commonwealth, The Echo Nest is in a great position to secure our position as the data engine for the music app economy."

About The Echo Nest

The Echo Nest makes music applications smarter. Powered by the world's only music machine learning system that actively reads about music and listens to music everywhere on the web, The Echo Nest opens up a huge repository of dynamic music data for every stakeholder in online music – from independent developers to the largest media companies in the world. To date, over 80 music applications have been built on The Echo Nest platform.  The company is co-founded by two MIT Media Lab PhDs and is a three-time National Science Foundation SBIR grant winner. For more information, please visit www.echonest.com.  

About Matrix Partners

Matrix Partners is a premier venture capital firm that has generated outstanding returns for over three decades. The firm has delivered several of the industry's top performing funds of all time. Matrix Partners has offices in Waltham, MA; New York, NY; Palo Alto, CA; Mumbai, India; and Beijing and Shanghai, China. The firm has been fortunate to have invested in game-changing, industry-leading businesses such as Apple Computer, Sandisk, Veritas, Sycamore Networks, Phone.com, Starent Networks, JBoss and Gilt Groupe. Find out more at www.matrixpartners.com.

About Commonwealth Capital Ventures

Commonwealth Capital Ventures (Waltham, MA) is a venture capital firm focused on software and software-based services, Internet and digital media, communications technology, and instruments and systems investments in the Northeastern United States. The firm's collaborative investment approach leverages the entire team's venture and operating expertise, experience, and contacts to guide portfolio companies through all stages of their development.  Since its inception in 1995, Commonwealth Capital has invested in more than 140 high-growth companies.  Commonwealth currently manages over $580 million of committed capital across four funds.  For more information, please visit www.commonwealthvc.com.

(1) Source: Akamai Net Usage Index

SOURCE The Echo Nest