10:13 | Friday February 11, 2011
By Eamonn Forde
Online audio company SoundCloud has now signed up 3m users to its platform globally.
The service had 2m users at the end of last year when it made its iPhone app free and added record functionality to it.
SoundCloud founder and CEO Alexander Ljung said, "To see this kind of exponential increase is incredible. We're working really hard to provide the best possible platform to enable anyone around the world to upload, record, promote and share their sounds across the web, and this milestone demonstrates we're on the right track.
The company recently received a new round of funding - rumoured to be $10m £6.2m - from Index Ventures and Union Square Ventures. The company said at the time it would use the money to improve the platform and extend its presence in the US by opening an office in San Francisco.
SoundCloud has been growing steadily as a distribution platform for both musicians and record companies and is being used for A&R, marketing and promotion. Its ability to aggregate listener Data for any music on its platform has made it an important analytics tool for labels.
Last year, it signed a deal with blog aggregator The Hype Machine to become the default audio player for many blogs, getting the backing of Domino Recordings in the process.
At the end of last year, it started to use Audible Magic's fingerprinting technology to determine copyright ownership of music exchanged on its platform and to allow the speedy removal of any unlicensed content.
SoundCloud was singled out as one of the new breed of service-based digital companies that venture capitalists are investing in, being seen as a more stable investment than companies that require complex licensing clearance for music use.
Index Ventures partner Saul Klein told Music Week recently, Our investment thesis became this: in a world of content abundance, what are the things that people value and will actually pay money for? There were two things as we saw it. The first was live, which explains our investments in Songkick and Viagogo. The other was tools and technology that improve or enhance your experience of music - such as Sonos, SoundCloud, DoubleTwist and RJDJ.
