Social music player TuneWiki is on a funding roll. The startup just raised $7 million in Series B funding from Motorola Ventures, Intellect Capital Ventures, HillsVen Capital, Novel TMT and Benchmark Israel. Today, TuneWiki is announcing that DOCOMO Capital, the venture arm of Japanese mobile giant NTT DOCOMO, has made an undisclosed investment in the company.
TuneWiki says it will use the investment for to build new products and expand its current mobile and web platforms.: TuneWiki is an app that brings music streaming, a lyrics database and music videos from YouTube to one social, customizable media player both on the web and to mobile devices. In the coming year, TuneWiki plans to launch a mobile game and significant feature upgrades to the TuneWiki social media player.
Of course, the NTT DOCOMO investment will also mean further expansion into the Japanese mobile markets.Rani Cohen, TuneWiki’s CEO, says that because of of the popularity of Karaoke applications in Japan, TuneWiki’s lyrics to music could gain traction in the country. TuneWiki boasts apps for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Nokia handsets.
TuneWiki is also appointing a new COO, Lawrence Goldberg, who was the former COO of Activision. Another Activision alum Michael Steiner, who worked on GuitarHero at the gaming company, is joining TuneWiki as director of marketing.
TuneWiki is an award-winning social music player. TuneWiki has the largest legally-licensed lyrics database in the world. The technology behind TuneWiki combines subtitled lyrics with local music and internet streaming radio. Lyrics are translated into more than 40 languages making TuneWiki the global lyrics resource for music-lovers. TuneWiki also makes music social with community features that allow sharing of songs and lyrics. The TuneWiki community maintains the lyric database through editing, adding, syncing, and translating lyrics. The...
NTT Docomo is Japan’s leading mobile communications company. The number of customers exceeds 50 million in Japan. docomo mainly provides phone, web (i-mode for mobile phones), and mail (i-mode mails, Short Mails, and SMS) services. Docomo’s parent company is NTT, Japan’s biggest telecommunications companies. In a strategic decision to put more emphasis on mobile phone operations, docomo was spun off in 1991 as a wholly self-owned subsidiary. The Japanese government is the top shareholder.
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