Norway's Soundrop Picks Up €2.5 Million Round

    Today Oslo-based Soundrop announces it has picked up a 20 million NOK (€2.5 million) round led by Northzone and Investinor. The company has had a good run so far, it’s service is available as an app for Spotify, on the web, on any Facebook page, and as apps for iOS and Android. Last year, Soundrop was the second most used app in Spotify’s App Finder.

    Their new investor, Investinor is Norwegian government backed investor with €525 million in management, and Northzone has also invested in Soundrop’s first €2.2 million round last June, as well as into Spotify, suggesting there could be a tighter integration of Soundrop coming, much like what we saw with Tungio, a playlist app acquired by Spotify.

    The social music service is pretty fun for listening and interacting with music. The main adverting draw to their platform is that you can occasionally chat and interact with your favorite bands or artists, where they act as DJ to spin tracks, while you can chat with them about music. They’ve had on bands like Imagine Dragons, Robin Thicke, Zedd, Owl City and more than 130 others. Reaching out to fans creates deeper relationships, and the internet age makes it easier to be everywhere, rather than having to tour up to Lapland to find one die-hard fan.

    On top of that they offer popular rooms, such as “The chill inn” or “Indie and Folk Radio”, which has tens to hundreds of listeners listening at one time. There, the crowd acts as the DJ on top of a randomly generated playlist. If you see a song you like way down in the queue, you can vote for it and send it to the top. Here, users can chat about the songs that are playing as well.

    Torleif Ahlsand, General Partner in Northzone and Chairman of Soundrop’s Board of Directors commented: “In the year since Northzone invested in Soundrop, the company has had a focus on product development and tight integration with Spotify. Now that the product has reached a new level of maturity, the company is ready to take its next steps. It feels so very right to bring Investinor in to provide additional rocket fuel. With the product well-established, Soundrop is now in pole position to drive revenue and growth in 2014.”