Whyd is a Paris-based music streaming social network that lets users curate favorite tracks from YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Dailymotion and various MP3 blogs using a browser bookmarklet. Originally launched as an invite-only beta in November 2012, the team says the extended beta period allowed them to hone technology and grow a quality taste-making community. The company flipped on a recommendation engine last March to match users with similar tastes and to strengthen the social discovery aspect. Whyd reports that 20% of its active users return daily, overall user counts are in the “dozens of thousands,” and about half a million tracks have been added and shared. It is most popular in cities such as London, New York City, Berlin and Barcelona. Whyd plans to use new funding to bolster its mobile engineering team and launch its first mobile app within the next few months. Whyd provides a browser bookmarklet that lets users save tracks from sources like YouTube, SoundCloud and Vimeo for later playback and sharing. The company is positioning itself as a music-based social network focused on discovery and connecting users with similar tastes via a recommendation engine. Whyd’s engine combines artist and track data, subscription affinities, listening history and other signals, and users can connect their Last.fm accounts. The service launched an invite-only beta in November and emphasizes onboarding (it says adding at least three songs yields useful recommendations). Whyd does not aim to be a full music consumption destination but rather a social layer where users collect and share meaningful tracks. The company is not talking monetization yet but hints at future tools to enable fans to connect with and support artists.

Total raised

$1M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Jan 2014