Almost a year to the day after it last took funding, audio-hosting service SoundCloud is taking a further round from new investors.
The round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is also joined by GGV Capital and is for $50 million and a $200 million valuation, TechCrunch reports, adding SoundCloud “will use the funding to expand more rapidly, especially in the US”.
SoundCloud CEO Alexander Ljung, who just fractured his foot in Miami, seems pretty pleased with the additions of KPCB and its partner Mary Meeker.
“With Kleiner Perkins’ impeccable track record for recognizing and investing in companies with a long-term view, and their understanding and support for the potential of sound, we couldn’t be more excited about working together,” says Ljung in SoundCloud’s announcement.
“Mary Meeker showed very clearly in her recent State of the Internet 2011 presentation that sound is the next frontier on the web. That vision, along with spotlighting mobile and international markets, made it clear that Kleiner Perkins aligns with SoundCloud’s mission.”
SoundCloud, a freemium service, raised a €2.5 million http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-soundcloud-gets-2.5-million-for1/round, led by Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, in April 2009, followed by a round from Union Square and Index Ventures in January 2011.
The notion of a “YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) for audio” is as old as the hills though, perhaps strangely, not tried by many players. With its new resources, SoundCloud is giving rival Audioboo a run for its money.