Slacker operates a "personal radio" streaming service with mobile apps across BlackBerry, iOS, Android, Palm webOS and Windows Mobile/Phone 7. The service is available in the United States and Canada and the company holds licensing agreements with all major labels. Slacker offers a premium subscription tier (about $4.99/month or $3.99/month on an annual plan) that enables unlimited skips, station caching, and no ads. The company positions itself as a rival to Pandora and says it will soon debut a true music-on-demand service similar to MOG, Rhapsody and Rdio. Slacker has indicated plans to leverage mobile and automotive relationships and to partner with car makers to equip vehicles with its service. Slacker is a popular internet radio provider and maker of a customizable radio-listening device, based in San Diego, Calif. Its core hardware product is the Slacker G2, a $199 portable player that plays unlimited music from Slacker radio stations and can be preloaded with a user’s selected stations. The device lets users enter an artist name to hear similar music and mirrors Slacker’s online radio selection. Slacker also offers applications for BlackBerry and iPhone to deliver the same stations and capabilities. The company has raised $9.6 million toward a hoped-for $10.2 million third round and has raised about $65 million in total to date. It brought in roughly $5 million at the end of last year. The company has not disclosed the investors in the recent round. Slacker operates a three-prong music service and has released two of the three components: a web player and a desktop player. The company plans a WiFi portable music player and a satellite car kit as the remaining product pieces. It recently raised a substantial financing to accelerate product development and manufacturing for those devices. The article frames Slacker as taking on incumbents like Last.fm and iTunes and compares Last.fm’s earlier $5M raise and $280M sale to CBS. The additional capital is intended to fund growth and build out the hardware components still to come. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the coverage. Slacker launched a web-based music player that customizes stations based on likes and dislikes, similar to Pandora, and the basic service is free and ad-supported. The company offers a $7.50/month paid tier that saves favorited songs to users' computers and removes ads. Slacker plans PC-based software that will organize local music and play the same stations as the web player. The company also intends to ship a Wi‑Fi portable device with a large color screen that caches songs for offline play, priced between $150 and $300 depending on storage. Additionally, Slacker is developing a satellite car kit to provide in-car access. The founding team includes former music startup CEOs Dennis Mudd, Jim Cady, and Jonathan Sasse, and the company is based in San Diego.

Total raised

$66M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Debt Financing

Latest activity

Feb 2011