Audio streaming platform Mixcloud has secured $11.5m (£8.03m) in a funding round led by USA based holding company WndrCo.
According to TechCrunch, a regulatory filing was made, and then co-founder Nico Perez confirmed the funding.
This is the first time that the London-based company has received outside funding in the 10 years since it’s been founded. The money will be used for product development, including to “diversify the platform,” and make the company less reliant on display advertising and other types of brand sponsorship alone. It also plans to expand the 22-person team, both in its London and New York offices.
Alongside 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 Mixcloud’s board.
Perez explained the origins of the company: “We are fairly rare, if not unique. We quit our jobs and incorporated the company in 2008 and then the next two years was the challenge of starting any new company, around building the team, trying to raise funding, and in our case doing these innovate types of [music] licenses.
“And, being straight up honest with you, we couldn’t fundraise. We couldn’t find anybody to put in money. It was a very different time back then”.
More than one million people upload content to the Mixcloud platform. Perez explained what’s next for the company: “The next step for us — and actually part of the fund-raise — is how do we move from bringing this very UK-centric streaming platform to being a global player.
“We looked at the wider marketplace and the time we’re in right now… and we kinda felt like if we really wanna go for it then we’re gonna need some firepower behind us. So that’s why we did the deal,” he added.
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