INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Mixcloud, the London startup that offers an audio streaming platform designed for long-form content, has closed its first-ever funding
round, TechCrunch has learned
According to a regulatory filing and since confirmed by co-founder Nico Perez, the ten-year old company has raised approximately $11.5
million led by WndrCo, the media and technology holding company based in Los Angeles and San Francisco.As part of the investment, WndrCo
partners Ann Daly (former president of DreamWorks Animation) and Anthony Saleh (an investor and artist manager of hiphop stars Nas and
Future) have joined the Mixcloud board
The injection of capital will be used to scale the service globally and for product development, says the company.This will include doubling
Warner and new paid Mixcloud consumer offerings, making the company less reliant on display advertising and other types of brand sponsorship
However, aside from a couple of U.K
As is, perhaps, its survival
The history of consumer-facing music startups is littered with companies that raise significant venture capital, before ultimately crashing
building the team, trying to raise funding, and in our case doing these innovate types of [music] licenses
cluster in East London where Mixcloud would eventually relocate, only entered the public domain in July 2008
And although Spotify was founded the same year, it remained very much under the radar
Investors were very, very wary of the space, or maybe we were just not very good at pitching
Mixcloud initially set up home in a warehouse in an industrial estate near Wembley, a much less fashionable part of London, in a bid to keep
over the next few years, it started to get traction amongst users and listeners
Then we started to make a little bit of money from Google Adsense and a few different brand partnerships
This not only ensured the lights could be kept on, but in recent years and somewhat ironically, the same financial discipline and
non-reliance on venture capital started to attract the attention of investors
need some firepower behind us
