imeem Acquires Web Music Player Anywhere.FM
SAN FRANCISCO - Monday, January 28, 2008 - imeem, the leading social media network, today announced the strategic acquisition of Anywhere.FM, a San Francisco-based web music player and Internet radio service. The acquisition of Anywhere.FM brings valuable music uploading capabilities, a rich web music player, and powerful recommendation features that will enhance the imeem experience and help imeem expand its business. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Anywhere.FM desktop uploader enables users to quickly and easily upload their personal MP3 collections to the Web and stream their favorite artists, songs and playlists from any browser. Consumers can upload individual songs or use Anywhere.FM’s uploader to upload their entire iTunes, WinAmp, or Windows Media Player libraries, including personal playlists, song ratings and play counts, with a single click. Users’ libraries are then accessible through a full-featured web music player complete with smart playlists, visualizers, and dynamic search. Anywhere.FM has also created a sophisticated “Friend Radio” feature that lets users discover new music by streaming playlists their friends and other users have uploaded. In addition, Anywhere.FM’s recommendation engine lets users search for people with similar music tastes.
“Anywhere.FM makes it simple for consumers to bring their music to the Web and discover new artists through recommendations and social connections,” said Dalton Caldwell, founder and CEO of imeem. “That’s a great fit with what we do. Combining Anywhere.FM’s expertise with the reach and scope of the imeem community creates some truly exciting possibilities, and we’re psyched they’re joining our team.”
“Since our launch last year, Anywhere.FM has given tens of thousands of consumers the convenience of enjoying their personal music collections from any browser,” said Anywhere.FM co-founder Sachin Rekhi. “Our team will now have the opportunity to continue that vision with imeem, and enhance the ability for imeem’s community of over 20 million users to share and discover music and video.”
Anywhere.FM was founded and launched in 2007, and received funding from Y Combinator. Anywhere.FM’s three co-founders, Anson Tsai, Lux Chen, and Sachin Rekhi, will join imeem, working from its San Francisco headquarters.
ABOUT IMEEM
imeem is the leading social media network where users create, recommend and discover music, film/video, art, and pop culture media and connect directly with people with similar tastes. By offering innovative media expression tools and social discovery features, including custom music playlists, video channels, photo slideshows and blogs, the imeem community can share their tastes with friends and fans on imeem and across the Web.imeem is the first social network to partner with all four major labels as well as thousands of indie labels and video providers to offer free, on-demand streaming of all music and video content on an ad-supported basis. Since the launch of its Web-based service in March 2006, the community has attracted over 20 million unique users each month. imeem was the fastest growing social site in the U.S. in September and October 2007*. To learn more, visit www.imeem.com.
About Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital provides venture capital funding to founders of startups who want to turn business ideas into companies. As the "Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs", Sequoia Capital's Partners have worked with innovators such as Steve Jobs of Apple Computer, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Bob Swanson of Linear Technology, Sandy Lerner and Len Bozack of Cisco Systems, Dan Warmenhoven of Network Appliance, Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo!, Jen-Hsun Huang of nVIDIA, Michael Marks of Flextronics, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen of YouTube and Dominic Orr and Keerti Melkote of Aruba Wireless Networks. To learn more about Sequoia Capital visit www.sequoiacap.com.
Contact:
Mark D. Kvamme
SEQUOIA CAPITAL
kvamme@sequoiacap.com
