Echo Nest, music intelligence technology, raises $1.3 million

The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company powering smarter music applications for leading online music companies and developers, today announced it secured additional venture financing. The company adds three new notable investors: Donald L. McLagan, Nicholas Negroponte and James J. Pallotta.

Donald L. McLagan most recently served as Chairman, President and CEO of Compete, Inc., which was acquired by Taylor Nelson Sofres. Previously, he was the founder, Chairman and CEO of NewsEdge Corporation, served as Vice President and General Manager of the Information Services Division of Lotus Development Corporation, and was Executive Vice President of Data Resources, Inc. (DRI). Mr. McLagan joined The Echo Nest board of directors in October of 2009.
Nicholas Negroponte was a co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory and is founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child non-profit association. He serves on the board of directors for Motorola, Inc. and as general partner in a venture capital firm specializing in digital technologies for information and entertainment.
James Pallotta is Chairman and Managing Director of Raptor Capital Management. Previously, Mr. Pallotta was employed by Tudor Investment Corporation. Mr. Pallotta joined Tudor as Managing Director of the U.S. Equity Securities Group in 1993, became a Member of the Management Committee of Tudor in 1996 and Vice Chairman of Tudor in 2005. He has 27 years of experience in equity research, analysis and investment, with a deep background in media and technology. Mr. Pallotta is also a member of the Executive Board of the Boston Celtics.
The Echo Nest's existing investors, including Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Argos Management and other angel investors, including Thomas DiBenedetto and MIT Media Lab co-founder Barry Vercoe, all participated in this most recent investment round. The Echo Nest will use the additional capital for planned major enhancements to its music application development platform and to expand its engineering team.
"We're thrilled to welcome such a world-class group of experienced investors to our team," said Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest. "We have been lucky to bring together investors that not only offer financial support, but bring a remarkable depth of expertise in helping us to make online music smarter."

Founders:

Tristan Jehan, Ph.D. (Co-Founder & CTO)
Tristan earned a doctorate in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT in 2005. His academic work combined machine listening and machine learning technologies in teaching computers how to hear and make music.

Brian Whitman, Ph.D. (Co-Founder & CTO)
Brian is recognized as a leading scientist in the area of music and text retrieval and natural language processing. He received his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005 in Machine Listening and a masters degree in Computer Science from Columbia University's Natural Language Processing Group.