SoundCloud follows funding with move to SF

Ronny Kerr · January 25, 2011 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/1647

San Francisco to be site of new SoundCloud office, so the team can work more closely with developers

SoundCloud SF

On the heels of a new funding round from top-tier investors, audio sharing site SoundCoud announced Tuesday morning that it would be extending its operations from its Berlin, Germany headquarters to San Francisco, with several new hires slated for the city in the coming months.

Besides being able to better serve American users, the move to the U.S. signals SoundCloud’s desire to work more closely with technology companies developing applications with the service’s API. The site’s app gallery hosts more than 120 apps, featuring products related to everything from Korg to the Hype Machine.

Best described as a YouTube or Flickr for audio files, SoundCloud enables users to upload their own musical creations and sound recordings to an elegant social platform. Users can search for tracks and share them with each other, and all files are presented alongside their actual waveform visualized, with users having the ability to comment at specific parts in the song.

SoundCloud has amassed 2.8 million registered users since its launch in 2008 and has released free apps for Android, iPhone and even Mac OS (SoundCloud was one of the very first applications in the Mac App Store). All of its apps combined have been downloaded over 500,000 times.

“Our move to San Francisco is reminiscent of when my co-founder, Eric Wahlforss and I first launched SoundCloud,” recounts Alexander Ljung, founder and CEO of SoundCloud. “Then it was the two of us working out of a cafe in the Mitte district of Berlin and sleeping on friends' floors. We still very much maintain that start-up ethos and are starting our US venture based out of The Summit cafe.”

Though Ljung says they’re still in startup mode (mentally, at least), his company is no longer short on cash.

Earlier in the month, SoundCloud raised (what was reported as) a $10 million second round of funding from Fred Wilson’s Union Square Ventures and Mike Volpi’s Index Ventures. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but both Wilson and Volpi gave the startup their blessing, not just with the new cash, but with recorded testimonials uploaded to the site’s platform.

That latest funding came less than two years after SoundCloud’s €2.5 million raised in April 2009, in a round led by Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures.