Fuzz Artists Inc. chief executive Jeff Yasuda
revealed to me Monday at the
SanFran MusicTech Summit that his company has raised additional funding in support of its
Blip.fm social music playlisting service. We followed up that brief conversation with a longer one, in which he offered additional details on the fundraising and his plans for the company.
Yasuda hit up Fuzz's existing angel investors for the company's fourth installment of capital since 2005, although the total funding for his operation remains less than $10 million. He declined to name the investors. The entrepreneur
said in May that unidentified individuals connected with Google Inc. [
GOOG] have invested in the past. The round remains open, with room for first-time backers to participate, Yasuda added.
Originally set up as a social network for bands and music fans, Fuzz now focuses its resources behind Blip.fm, most commonly described as a "
Twitter-for-music" service that searches for songs on the Web and creates a running playlist. The company has reduced its staff to a core of four people, and will pledge limited support and resources to the other Fuzz assets in the future. In addition, Fuzz has spun out its
Sonic Boomers site, helmed by longtime Warner Music Group Corp. [
WMG] executive Bill Bentley and catering to an older record-buying audience, although Fuzz retains equity in that property.
Since its introduction in May and a more formal launch in July, Blip.fm has grown visibly more popular in recent weeks, benefiting especially from exposure in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America. Yasuda says his staff recently performed "an infrastructure scaling exercise" and also opened an API for developers. Like its microblogging peer
Twitter Inc., Blip.fm doesn't seem preoccupied with a business model yet and remains pre-revenue.
Yasuda adds that Fuzz has received inbound M&A interest recently and would "fit very nicely in a couple of spots on the mobile front," although the company isn't actively seeking a sale.
-- Paul BonanosSee May 15 post from Tech Confidential concerning Blip.fm
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