The Echo Nest Nabs $17M More for Smarter Music Tech

The Boston-area startup financing train keeps rolling this week.

The Echo Nest, a Somerville, MA-based music tech company, has raised a $17.3 million Series C round led by new investor Norwest Venture Partners (also a recent investor in Boston-based Gemvara). Previous investors including Matrix Partners and Commonwealth Capital also participated. The company, which closed a $7 million B round in 2010, has now raised a total of more than $25 million.

The startup has developed an open-source audio fingerprinting system and machine-learning platform that turns music data on the Web into insights about content for app developers and businesses. The Echo Nest is led by CEO Jim Lucchese and was founded by MIT Media Lab alums Brian Whitman and Tristan Jehan. You can read about the startup’s early days in this in-depth feature from 2008.

You can also check out more details on today’s news from BostInno and the Boston Business Journal.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.