Songkick raises $1.9 million for live music

Ronny Kerr · February 15, 2011 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/1709

Y Combinator graduate, three years and $5 million investments later, still working on concert lists

If you love live music, you’ll love this website.
 
Songkick, a website for tracking tour dates for your favorite musicians, has raised $1.9 million in its fourth round of funding, according to an SEC filing. There’s no telling if new investors contributed to the round; the only name on the filing that doesn’t belong to a Songkick executive is Saul Klein, a partner at Index Ventures who has already held a seat on the company’s board from a previous round. The company did not reply to comment.
 
Following its seed as a Y Combinator graduate, Songkick raised a small round from The Accelerator Group and SoftTech VC in March 2008 and a $4 million round from Index Ventures in December 2008.
 
Songkick is one of those startups that focuses exclusively on doing one thing and doing it exceptionally well. For Songkick, that one thing is tracking concerts. It wants to be the number one destination for live music lovers to not only be nostalgic about past concerts but also to always be in the know about upcoming concerts they’ll be interested in.
 
The first time you log in to the service, you are prompted to enter in a few of your favorite bands and artists to start tracking. Chances are, however, this will grow tedious since, as a music lover, you can’t possibly spend all day entering in names of musicians. Thankfully, Songkick can import your favorite music from either a Pandora account, a Last.fm account or directly from an iTunes library. If you choose the second option (as I did), the site will also import your upcoming and past shows.

Past shows can be supplemented with user-uploaded media like videos or tour posters, the show’s setlist, links to reviews, and user ratings. In my opinion, this is one of the really unique things about Songkick. It’s got a wiki-style database of information like the kind found on Setlist.fm or Last.fm combined with more advanced technologies to always be up-to-date about upcoming shows.

According to the company, Songkick indexes 133 different ticket vendors, venue websites, and local newspapers to achieve that end.

Songkick was founded in 2007 by Ian Hogarth, Pete Smith, and Michelle You.
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Launched October 2007 by co-founders Ian Hogarth, Michelle You and Pete Smith, Songkick is dedicated to providing the single best concert resource online for music enthusiasts. Using web indexing technology, the company is building the world’s most comprehensive directory of live music events, aggregating ticketing information from over 25 global ticket vendors such as Ticketmaster and Tickets.com. Songkick also powers concert listings on Qloud and Songbird. The site has received funding from Index Ventures, and a select group of angels including Saul Klein, (The Accelerator Group), Alex Zubillaga (former EVP of Digital Strategy and Business Development at Warner Music Group), Jeff Clavier (Softech VC), Dan Porter (co-founder of Ticketweb), Peter Read (Music Nation), Andrew Weissman and John Borthwick (Betaworks), Stefan Glaenzer (ex-Chairman Last.fm), Daniel Miller (founder of Mute Records), Mike Heneghan (former MD Mute Records), and Y Combinator.

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