Bop.fm’s Music Access Service Raises $2 Million Investment Round
In news that appeared on Business Insider early this morning, Bop.fm is said to be raising $2 million in funding. Bop.fm is also launching Verified Artist Pages with curated playlists from big stars. No word on what they're planning for the future but they seem to be successfully building out their early service with each new step fitting nicely into place.
Rebecca Borison reports that Bop.fm has raised a $2 million funding round led by Charles Ventures but I think that's Charles River Ventures.
Crunchbase, which is an extremely inconsistent source especially in music tech, has a note that they raised a $2 million seed round from Charles River Ventures. I have a last minute email in to the CEO, Shehzad Daredia, and will update when I hear more.
But it does appear that they got $2 million and Rebecca Borison was situated to share it first before official announcements occurred.
Bop.fm began with the idea of linking to a song on one music service and they'll connect your friends to the song via whatever service they're on including Spotify, Beats Music, Deezer, Rdio, YouTube and SoundCloud. At launch they already had embeddable players and playlists and they've been gradually building on this combination of being a destination and having a wider presence.
Since they already had artist-branded playlists, I'm not sure what the Verified Artist Pages brings to the table beyond verification of identity though that may be something advertisers want to see.
I'm also not up on their licensing but Borison says they're working directly with at least some music services so there is cooperation there. How the licensing piece of the puzzle is playing out might tell us if $2 million is a lot or just the beginning.
More:
- Bop.fm Powers Free Artist Created Streams, Playable On (Almost) Any Music Streamer
- Playlist Grabber Increases Bop.fm's Strength As A Music Services Connector
- Bop.fm Connects Music Services To Make Music More Shareable
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) also blogs at DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
