Merchbar, the latest company to break into the online music merchandise space, has received more than $1 million in seed funding from several prominent Silicon Valley angel investors, the company announced.
Founded by programming entrepreneur Edward Aten, creator of music distribution company Swift.fm, and John Hecker, Merchbar.com is a purchasing application that is designed to a consumer's personal taste.
The company distributes merchandise from more than 10,000 artists and is the first music app to support Apple Pay.
The company enters a crowded marketplace competing with Amazon, Rockabilia.com, BestRockTShirts.com and others.
But the technology Merchbar is unique in that it draws upon the user's iTunes library and Facebook data for merchandise suggestions.
Apple has featured Merchbar as a Best New App on its App Store homepage; it is featured on "Buy with Apple Pay" page and was named as one of the Best Free Apps. Merchbar is designed to work with the latest Apple upgrades and with iPhone 6.
Merchbar said it has received funding from 500 Startups, Maiden Lane, Structure Capital, Universal Music Group, Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg, IP Attorney Jeff Schox, Living Social co-Founder Aaron Batalion, KISSmetrics co-founder Hiten Shah and Thumbtack.com co-founder Jonathan Swanson.
The company has partnerships with Live Nation, Firebrand, Bravado and MusicToday and has recently secured agreements with Sony Music, Warner Music Group and Global Merchandise Services.
For more information on Merchbar, visit their official website.
