Music Analytics Firm Raises Funds for Growth

US online music analytics and insights firm Next Big Sound (NBS) has raised an undisclosed round of funding from venture capital firm Foundry Group, which it will use to recruit developers and system administrators tasked with expanding its technology.

NBS pulls data from online sites to track the number of plays, views, fans, comments, mentions, and other key metrics for musical artists. Its platform measures the growth and popularity of bands across major web properties, and the firm sells these insights to band managers and other industry professionals.

Foundry Group Partner Jason Mendelson says that his firm believes current tools used to measure the popularity of music - including Nielsen's SoundScan, which measures CD sales and digital downloads - are insufficient.

Currently, the industry-norm data report is from SoundScan, which supplies information on how many CDs and digital downloads have been purchased along with how many plays have occurred on terrestrial radio.

'We believe that this report is already mostly irrelevant,' says Mendelson. 'The explosion of social media, including YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and the blogosphere have shifted the listening audience to other venues and current information sources for the industry do not cover these properties.'

Boulder, Colorado-based NBS, which was founded by Samir Rayani, Alex White, David Hoffman and Jason Sosnovsky (no longer with the firm) is online at www.thenextbigsound.com .