Echo Nest Raises $17 Million for Musical Big Data

The Echo Nest, which maintains databases used by companies like Spotify, Vevo and Nokia, has received investors' $17 million. People like saying “big data” right now, and Echo Nest describes itself as “the leading music big data company.” What that really means is that it has a giant pile of information that music companies use to create recommendation engines and other features for their services. Echo Nest is positioning itself to sell services to companies that don’t specialize in music, too. It argues that its database could help “a wide range of applications” with tasks like “social discovery,” because it turns out that musical taste and preferences may help predict people’s taste and preferences for other stuff.

As a test case, the company has run the numbers on correlating musical taste and political affiliation. You may not be surprised to learn that country fans lean Republican and Rihanna fans like Democrats, but there’s more interesting stuff in a blog post.

Mitt Romney with Kid Rock

See more in Peter Kafka's "Echo Nest Raises $17 Million for Musical Big Data".