Cord Project Acquired by Spotify

NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Cord Project, founded in 2014 by former Googlers Jeff Baxter and Thomas Gayno, designs and builds products exploring audio on today's and tomorrow's connected devices. Their flagship product, Cord, is an incredibly simple, one tap voice messaging platform built for phones, tablets, and watches on iOS and Android. Cord counts over a million users around the world and has grown along with the popularity of voice messaging and wearables.

"We founded Cord Project because we saw a huge opportunity for innovation in the audio space," said Thomas Gayno, Cord Project's CEO & Co-Founder. "At Spotify, we're looking forward to continuing that exploration to build even better ways to discover and listen to music across connected devices."

Cord Project will be joining Spotify in New York where they will build a product group focused on creating compelling content experiences. "The team at Cord has built brilliant products which both demonstrate their passion for audio and also their talent for product design, innovation and delivering great user experiences," said Shiva Rajaraman, Spotify's VP of Product. "We're excited to welcome them to the team at Spotify, and looking forward to their contributions in shaping the future of music engagement."

About Cord Project Inc.
Cord Project is a small team of designers and engineers exploring audio communication on today's and tomorrow's connected devices. The company was founded in 2014 in New York City by former Googlers Thomas Gayno and Jeff Baxter and acquired by Spotify in January 2016 (terms are undisclosed). Prior to the acquisition, Cord had raised $1.8 million in seed funding from Metamorphic Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Google Ventures, Greycroft, Slow Ventures, and a handful of angel investors.

About the Cord founders 
Cord Project's founders, Thomas Gayno & Jeff Baxter, previously worked together for five years at Google Creative Lab in New York where they invented new products, features, brands, and experiences for Google, Android, Chrome and Google X. They left in April 2014 to found Cord Project Inc.

About Spotify 
Spotify brings you the right music for every moment – on computers, mobiles, tablets, home entertainment systems, cars, gaming consoles and more. Just search for music you love, or let Spotify play you something great. Create and listen to your playlists for free or subscribe to Premium for on-demand access at the highest audio quality – with zero ads.

SOURCE Cord Project Inc.