Earbits to shut down on June 16th

Earbits to shut down on June 16th


Earbits debuted four and a half years ago - when Spotify was still a relatively small company and the streaming space was still very much open to young, driven companies - with the idea of featuring independent music without any commercials or price tag for the consumer.

In a blog post appeared on June 12th though the company announced that they would be shutting down on Monday June the 16th, just four days later. The post states that the company is not shutting down because their concept was flawed or because the economics didn’t work, but because they needed a lot more capital to pursue their mission.

The company also makes interesting comments around what they achieved with the service: “By showcasing features that allowed our listeners to connect with our artists, we generated for them hundreds of thousands of new mailing list signups and Facebook fans across a relatively small audience.  The revenue and other value that our partners generated from these new connections was often ten or twenty times higher than what they receive from ad-supported royalties on major services, and it provides concrete evidence that there is more streaming companies can do to provide the content community with a return for their hard work.”

Whilst other startups have used the “we’re shutting down” card as a way to attract last-minute investor interest, putting the closing date 2 or 3 months in the future, it feels like Earbits is not entertaining such an option having provided only a 4-day window before closure. Of course it’s still feasible that a last-minute investor could appear to fund the continuation of the company but given how much the music streaming landscape has changed it’s hard to see the Earbits concept ever becoming mainstream when companies like Apple, Amazon and Google are entering this space and Spotify is nearing IPO…

The company thanked all the supporters, artists and investors that have been involved in the journey thus far and announced that artists and labels who purchased the company’s marketing services could request a pro-rated refund by emailing the client services team by June 18th.

It is likely that if no last-second saviour shows up some of Earbits’ assets - if not the entire company - will be purchased by third parties so we’ll keep our ear peeled for potential buyers.


(Andrea Leonelli)