Bop.fm wants to revolutionize the way we share music

When music fans encounter a song online, in many cases they can’t simply play it where they find it. Rights management issues, which have plagued the industry since the launch of Apple’s iTunes and Napster, make digital music distribution complicated. And consumers demonstrate a wide variety of habits and preferences when it comes to playing and sharing music online. To solve problems around fragmentation, Bop.fm raised $2 million in Series A funding, says co-founder and CEO Shehzad Daredia. “We build a home for every song on the Internet, and let you easily share it with anyone, no matter what music service they subscribe to or prefer,” the CEO said. Charles River Ventures led the investment in Bop.fm, joined by SV Angel, Y Combinator, FundersClub, and individual angel investors from a variety of tech and music companies.

San Francisco-based music streaming startup Bop.fm has raised a $2 million Series A round of funding from Charles River Ventures, SV Angel, Y Combinator, FundersClub and others. Bop.fm also launched verified artist pages Thursday, and is looking to get its own dedicated mobile apps next. Bop.fm lets users organize and trade playlists, regardless of which music services their friends are using. A Spotify user can send a playlist to a Rdio subscriber, who can then forward it to someone who doesn’t pay for music services at all to listen to it through free copies on YouTube and SoundCloud. It’s a good idea in a world of increasing fragmentation, and something I called the Switzerland of music when I first wrote about Bop.fm in March. Bop.fm cofounder Shehzad Daredia had a different analogy when I talked to him earlier this week; he said the company’s goal was to build the Kayak of music. Part of that effort is to make Bop.fm more valuable as a destination for music fans, which is why the company also launched verified artist pages Thursday, where artists and bands like Snoop Dogg, Depeche Mode and Keith Urban offer their fans access to hand-picked songs and complete playlists. Artists and labels who participate get detailed analytics in return, which not only reveal which songs got played on what service, but also which other services their fans are using.