Nearly a decade after starting Mixcloud, we are excited to announce that we have closed our first-ever funding round - an $11.5m investment from WndrCo.
The Mixcloud team has been working hard over the years to bring you - our creators, listeners and partners - a unique and valuable service in the competitive world of streaming. This new investment will allow us to continue developing a world class product, deepen our reach in new markets, and continue building a better Mixcloud for you all.
“We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the best in the game”
Now a little bit about our new partner. WndrCo is a media and technology holding company based in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Before WndrCo, the team built and led some of the world’s most successful and loved media, entertainment and tech companies - including DreamWorks, Dropbox and The Walt Disney Studios. As part of this investment we’re delighted to welcome Ann Daly and Anthony Saleh to our company board. Ann is former president of DreamWorks Animation and Anthony is an investor and artist manager of hip hop stars Nas and Future. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the best in the game to make our platform even stronger.
The news went live last week with a great piece in TechCrunch, followed by coverage across the likes of Billboard, Variety and Hypebot (note to TechCrunch, not sure if we should laugh or cry at your amusing Nathan Barley “self-facilitating-media-node” reference in the URL! Confused non-UK readers - this is an iconic UK sitcom parodying life in Shoreditch, Mixcloud’s home for the past five years). The team has also received hundreds of personal notes from friends, partners and supporters congratulating us on the milestone - it’s been heartwarming to see how many people in the ecosystem are genuine supporters of what we do. From the bottom of our hearts, thanks to everyone who has been a part of the Mixcloud journey to date, however large or small.
“We’ve built the company sustainably so that it will always be here for the creators and community we serve”
As you know, Mixcloud’s story is unique. Some people have labelled us the ‘most successful bootstrapped company in audio streaming’, which is incredibly humbling but equally something we’re immensely proud of. In an age of ‘grow fast’ and ‘fail fast’, we’ve taken a different path. We’ve built the company sustainably so that it will always be here for the creators and community we serve. With this strong foundation in place and the wider industry growing at light speed, now is a great time to invest in accelerating our growth; and we make a promise to our community that we will continue doing so with the same discipline, so that Mixcloud remains the leading platform for audio culture for years to come.
We’re thrilled to share this news with you. But we’re more excited about what’s coming next. We will invest in the core product experience for both uploaders and listeners - new features, improved recommendation and discovery, further investment into our mobile apps and much more. We will continue to improve our proprietary TrackMatch Content ID technology process, which digests the mixes and shows uploaded by you; analyzes the audio fingerprints within each; matches songs within each show to their underlying artist, label, and publisher rights holders; and ultimately ensures that all stakeholders receive the royalties that they’re due. We will diversify the service - from new platforms to content expansion to growth into new geographies, particularly the USA. We have an exciting vision to continue to help creators connect with their listeners in meaningful ways and to create enormous cultural impact in the world.
“Everyone who works here is part of the community in some way”
We will continue to build our talented team of engineers, product designers, product managers, curators, content creators, brand strategists, creative directors, creative producers and more. We are DJs; we are artists; we are radio presenters & Podcasters; we are promoters; we are fans. Everyone who works here is part of the community in some way. We’re all deeply invested in this culture and passionate about the mission of building Mixcloud. There’s a lot of work to do, and we’re looking for talented, hard working and entrepreneurial people to join the team to help us do it!
Thank you for being a part of this journey,
The Mixcloud Team aka Lixo, Ben, Charlotte, Lumi, DG, Greg, Jyoty, Henrietta, Tofuu, Holly, Jana, Danvers, Victorian Jon, Junyuan, Kaz, Mat, Riggidy Rez, Sketchy, Sam, Millie, Stephen, Stuart, Tim and Aunty X.
Mixcloud is hiring! We’re recruiting for a number of roles across product, engineering, design, community, brand partnerships, sales, finance and operations! Check out the current roles available here.
