New York based 8tracks took their internet radio game up a level yesterday, releasing an iPhone app that would let users listen and share mixtapes with one another on the go. As we mentioned in our rumor round-up, they were clearly on the hunt for some funds.
But apparently the 8 track team, which so far has been working for equity and keeping other full time jobs, has decided it needs to head to San Fransisco if it’s going to raise venture capital and gets it technology shipshape.
Co-founder and CEO David Porter told GigaOM’s Colleen Taylor that 8track is hoping to raise $5 million, certainly not a round that New York investors couldn’t accommodate, but well beyond the $300,000 in seed funding they have gotten so far.
The company has some interesting work-arounds in place to avoid pissing off the music labels. You can create an eight track mix tape, but you can’t use more than two songs from a given artist. And the order of the mix gets randomized the second time you listen to it, which in some pretty serious ways violates the spirit of mixtape-ology.
Users can’t create new mixtapes from the mobile app, but this being an Apple product, they can of course buy songs directly from their phones.
