Wellington Music Start-up Gets Investment to Go Global

_The Rutherford Innovation Fund Invests in MusicHype.com_

The Wellington based start-up MusicHype.com has just closed a NZ$600,00 investment round with the Rutherford Innovation Fund for expansion into the North American market.

The investment will be used to expand MusicHype's marketing and technical teams, while also tackling the music industry and music fans in North America. Founders Jeff Mitchell and Annabel Youens will be opening up a permanent office in Los Angeles to work collaboratively with the Wellington based team.

MusicHype.com rewards fans for promoting, talking about and spending money on the bands they love. It turns music promotion into a social game, and enables bands to make money from exclusive merchandise, tickets, digital downloads, and other products. The MusicHype platform tracks fans’ activity across social media services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Last.FM, and rewards fans for promoting the bands they love. It increases direct revenue for artists and labels through ticket sales, merchandise and other music related products. MusicHype is powered by the social commerce Appreciation Engine®, a proprietary underlying technology that will be expanded to other industries.

Having proven traction and reached breakeven within its first year of operation in New Zealand, the company is ready to scale in North America.

Kenji Steven, Director of NZ Capital Strategies, General Partner of the Rutherford Innovation Fund says, “We invested in MusicHype because the music industry has been disrupted by the Internet and digital technologies. Established business models are not providing adequate returns for record labels and artists, or satisfying experiences for fans. MusicHype provides a platform for bands to leverage rapidly changing technologies and new business models by directly engaging with fans. The underlying 'Appreciation Engine®' technology can also be applied to many other verticals, which we find tremendously exciting due to the growing importance of social media on influencing consumer behaviour.”

Jeff Mitchell, CEO/CTO of MusicHype, believes this investment will give more artists and fans opportunities to connect. “It's exciting to be able to tap into the large North American market. We'll be partnering with bands and labels in the US to help them reward their fans and make more money. At the same time we'll be able to expose music fans in North America to the incredible bands we're working with in NZ.”

ENDS

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