tunesBag, an Austrian music sharing startup that has been around for quite some time, has just raised €250,000 through a government fund and an undisclosed investor. The platform itself is, like many others, a cloud-based iTunes where you can sync your local music library via the cloud to a variety of devices. But the startup has recently added a nifty feature that lets users connect their Dropbox account with their tunesBag library, making the service effectively iTunes-meets-Dropbox.
Through tight API integration, this works well and lets users sync all of their tracks to Dropbox so that they can be streamed. The question remains how many people are actually using Dropbox as a music storing and sharing service with the arrival of many other cloud-based ‘locker’ services dedicated to music.
And, of course, Apple itself is rumoured to be on the verge of entering this already crowded space. This makes tunesBag’s goal to become a default music player on the web a pretty ambitious goal for a tiny startup with little funding compared to other European cloud-music plays such as Spotify, for example, or indeed the dark horse in the room that is Cupertino.
tunesBag’s new funding will be used for product extensions that enable a user’s library to be used and listened to on multiple devices, such as car stereos, TVs and the desktop. The startup is also planning to move to Silicon Valley’s Plug and Play Tech Center to establish strategic US partnerships.