Slacker raises $9.6M for player that customizes radio on the go

May 15, 2009 | Camille Ricketts | Comments | |

Slacker, popular internet radio provider and maker of a customizable radio-listening device, has brought in $9.6 million of what it hopes will be a $10.2 million third round of funding. Based in San Diego, Calif., the company now offers the same radio stations and capabilities in the form of applications for the Blackberry and iPhone.

To put it simply, the device — called the Slacker G2 — seems to be the physical manifestation of Pandora Radio (or a mashup of the service and the iPod). For $199, you get the unit pictured right, which will play unlimited music from Slacker radio stations that supposedly fits your predefined tastes. You can also enter the name of an artist to hear music from someone similar. For customers who order now, the company says it will preload their G2s with their selected radio stations so it’s ready to go from the moment they turn it on.

It’s unclear why a separate device is needed for this considering how widely popular Pandora and similar music recommendation engines have become. The Slacker player seems to be an even narrower offering, actually, with the device only drawing from existing Slacker radio stations. This might appeal to devotees of Slacker’s online radio selection but will probably have a hard time attracting new listeners into the fold.

The company has not disclosed who provided the recent, surprisingly large round of funding, but it has relied on investors Centennial Ventures, Rho Ventures, Austin Ventures, Mission Ventures and Sevin Rosen Funds in the past. The company has raised about $65 million to date, bringing in about $5 million of that at the end of last year.

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About the Author, Camille Ricketts

Camille is the lead writer for GreenBeat. She came to VentureBeat from Google where she worked on its traditional platforms team, particularly in TV. Before that, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York and London. Follow her on Twitter at @camillericketts, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

With GreenBeat 2009, VentureBeat's all-star conference on all things Smart Grid, coming up in November, Camille will be expanding coverage of this exciting space. Stay up to date by following @greenbeat2009 on Twitter or by becoming a fan of the event on Facebook here.

  • Slacker Fan
    Obviously, the writer of this article didn't do much research.
    Quotes: "Slacker radio stations that supposedly fit your predefined tastes..."
    "It’s unclear why a separate device is needed."
    "The Slacker player seems to be an even narrower offering, actually, with the device only drawing from existing Slacker radio stations."
    Wow. So much wrong info.
    The Slacker online player EXACTLY fits your predefined tastes. You add or ban artists and songs from existing Slacker stations -- or invent your own stations! You can tailor them to play only hits or add less familiar tunes. You can connect to refresh (load up) your Slacker G2 Portable player with your favorite 25 stations and take them anywhere, w/o being constantly connected online. It works like an iPod, but you don't have to spend a lot of time or money buying or downloading songs. It's all CD quality, and it's completely legal and free. You just have to hear about 1 or 2 commercials an hour. It's the best piece of technology I've bought in years.
    I dumped my satellite subscription and now use Slacker. There's no monthly fee and I can control the music more.
    Go to their website (www.slacker.com) and fiddle with the player. You'll be hooked like I am.
  • Another Fan
    Full disclosure - I'm not a venture capitalist, just a music lover. So if you, as an investor, want to know what a consumer of the Slacker service thinks, read on. If your primary interest is the financial status of the company (which makes sense to me for an investor) this info may not do you a whole lot of good.
    But Slacker, btw, did have a million Blackberry users download the Slacker app for the Blackbery in the last month. Seems to me that this would indicate a lot of interest in Slacker in general, especially since your average Blackberry user is not typically characterized as a music geek.
    The beauty of Slacker is that it allows you to not only listen to customized stream of music, like Pandora does, but to also cache that (and other favorite streams) as well. Currently you can do this on the Slacker player and the Blackberry. The new Sony X series MP3 players (due next month) will also allow the caching function. The caching function seems to be pretty much disregarded in this article, but it is critical for portability. Pandora, while a great service, is useful only when your computer is on, and on line. I use my Slacker portable daily while riding the bus, and in my car.
    I think it may be useful for an investor to realize that I (and many, many other music lovers) have canceled my XM satellite subscription in favor of Slacker. And I haven't listened to "regular" FM in years. HD FM radio may sound good, but it will not bring me back to the commercial mess that is corporate FM today.
    So my point in posting a reply to this article is simply to point out that Slacker, while far from perfect (but getting better), represents the kind of product/service that will only grow in use over time. Believe me when I say that every Slacker player owner is an evangelist for the product. I personally have turned three friends into Slacker owners in the past month, and many more into users of the web service. Do I know if their management and their business plans are sound? No. But I'm still listening to Slacker, and pretty much only Slacker.
  • As always, technology is moving forward, cheers :-)
  • Slacker isn't that great....
    Sirius XM is best