MediaNama is reporting that international streaming music startup Rdio has acquired Dhingana in a bid to enter the India market.
This is really less of an “acquisition” and more of a “fire sale” (or an aquihire):
Sources also told MediaNama that the amount being offered to Dhingana is lower than the amount of funding they had raised. Dhingana had shut down its operations in February 2014 a couple of months after the biggest music label in India, T-Series, decided not to renew its contract with the company. In December, after reports that Dhingana might shut down, [CEO] Bhatia had told MediaNama that the company was in the process of restructuring its operations. He had at that point had declined to comment on the possibility of a shut-down.
Dhingana was backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, but had also raised funding from Helion Ventures and Inventus Capital prior to this.
The founder of Dhingana will join Rdio team:
founders Snehal Shinde and Swapnil Shinde will be joining the Rdio team, where they will be responsible for Rdio’s expansion efforts in India as well as other emerging markets. Rdio India will be launching later this year.
Rdio provides ad-supported and ad-free online music streaming services in 35 countries:
Created by Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis in 2010, it last raised funding in 2011, when it then received $17.5 million from Mangrove Capital Partners, along with earlier investors Skype, Atomico Ventures and Friis himself through some of his investment entities.
One interesting aspect of this acquisition for PuneTech readers is the technology aspect of it. There will, hopefully, soon be APIs for us:
Open for developers in India? Rdio has an API that can be used by developers to create music oriented apps. Internationally Shazam uses these APIs, but the company has a tie-up with Saavn in India for music recognition services. It’s not clear what will happen to that deal once the acquisition is completed. Gaana had also launched a similar API last month and had invited developers to submit app ideas on its website.
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