Streaming music service Pandora has secured a new round of funding to continue its growth, with reports suggesting the amount may be as much as $35 million.Greylock Ventures led the round, and its partner David Size is joining Pandora’s board. The news comes just days after the announcement of new royalty rates for Pandora and other online radio firms, which Pandora founder Tim Westergren hailed as finally providing the company with a viable future.And yet… MP3.com founder Michael Robertson has ripped into the new rates in a post on his blog, claiming that the per-song fee element means most webcasters will be paying between 40% and 100% of their revenues. “Net radio is going to die a slow death in the United States,” he writes, singling out Pandora as one company that still won’t be able to make the numbers add up.”Pandora estimates they will do 1 billion hours of streaming in 2009 which requires $17 million in royalties. They estimate they will do $40 million in revenue which equates a payment to the major labels of 42.5% of their total revenues. No business can operate with such an enormous financial obligation.”
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…