Hello Music raises $4M for A&R platform

In the name of spreading music, Hello Music connects musicians with music industry executives

Hello Music, seeking to provide a service that links up musical talent with the right people in the music industry, announced today that it has raised $4 million in venture capital from KVG Partners.

KVG's lead investor, Dick Kiphart, will be joining the company as chairman of the board, as part of the deal.

Currently an invite-only, limited preview, Hello Music looks like it will be a pretty simple service. Users create a profile, upload their music, and then wait for the staff at Hello Music to listen to the uploaded tunes. After hearing out your music, the site provides you with feedback and then, presumably, tries to introduce you to opportunities to get your music out there.

As of now, Hello Music's partners include AudioMicro, Getty Images, GigMaven, LyricFind, MediaNet, Next Big Sound, Slacker, Topspin, TuneCore, and Yahoo!, a group of distributors, booking services, marketers, and Webcasters which will likely be the first and immediate sites musicians will be referred to. In that regard, Hello Music is essentially just a middleman.

"Technology has created infinite possibilities for musicians to distribute and promote their music, but there are fewer gatekeepers to identify quality acts and actually help them connect to the opportunities that power a career," said Zack Zalon, managing partner of Hello Music and Wilshire Media Group, the digital music product design and development company incubated Hello Music. "Hello Music believes you need a team of industry professionals — real people — to evaluate that music to find those artists whose careers will grow."

Before creating Wilshire Media Group, Zack Zolan and co-founder Brendan Cassidy had served as President and CTO, respectively, at Virgin Digital, where they oversaw the launch of Radio Free Virgin, an Internet radio service.

Cassidy and Zolan hope to use their experience with the music industry to help musicians get their music heard.