News
May 01 2008
The Echo Nest Receives Phase II National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant
SOMERVILLE, Mass., May 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company providing enhanced music search, recommendation and interactivity technology to online music companies has been awarded a Phase II SBIR grant from the National Science Foundation.
The grant will support The Echo Nest's continued development of its "Musical Brain," a large-scale data mining platform that actually reads about music and listens to music everywhere on the internet. The Echo Nest will apply its network and sentiment analysis technology to automatically cluster online communities by music preference and more deeply understand online music sentiment. Applications of the technology include improved music personalization and behaviorally-targeted advertising for music websites.
The Phase II SBIR grants are the result of a rigorous peer review by leadings scientists, entrepreneurs and investors, with a focus on the commercial potential of the proposed technology. Only 5% of applicants advance to Phase II. "This grant will help us provide an even deeper understanding of music fans to a wide array of online music companies -- from social networks and bloggers to webcasters and paid music services." said Dr. Tristan Jehan, co-founder of The Echo Nest.
The $500,000 grant, entitled "Automated Community and Sentiment Mining for Global Media Preference Understanding," makes The Echo Nest eligible for an additional $500,000 in investment matching if the company raises equity financing. The NSF refers to this investment matching as a Phase II "B" grant.
About The Echo Nest
The Echo Nest develops technology to make connections between people and their music more meaningful. The company is co-founded by two MIT PhDs. The Echo Nest's investors include a co-founder of the MIT Media Lab and aBoston- based private investment fund.
About the National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950. With an annual budget of about $6.06 billion, the NSF is the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America's colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing.
SOURCE The Echo Nest
