Murfie
 | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. (September 2020) |
 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Music storage and streaming service |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Founders | Preston Austin, Matt Younkle |
| Defunct | 2019 |
| Fate | Ceased operations; assets acquired |
| Headquarters | Madison, Wisconsin, United States |
| Products | CD and vinyl digitization and streaming |
Murfie was a commercial music streaming service based initially in Madison, Wisconsin. Its members bought, sold, and traded compact discs and streamed or downloaded their contents.[1] Additionally, members could digitize and store CDs and LPs they sent from home to Murfie.[2] Murfie was featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, Time magazine, and National Public Radio.[citation needed]
Preston Austin and Matt Younkle co-founded the company.[2] In 2012, Murfie became a member of startup accelerator and venture capital firm Techstars.[3] In 2014, the company announced they had lossless FLAC streaming available on Sonos devices.[4]
Younkle left in 2015, and Rex Mangat, company CEO, departed in September 2019, shortly before the company ceased operations in November 2019.[2] When Murfie shut down, disks were not returned to customers.
In January 2020, Crossies LLC acquired the site's assets, making its owner John Fenley the owner of Murfie as well.[5] Crossies committed to returning collections to those who had entrusted the Madison company with their music.[5] Of the 750,000 discs held by Crossies, requests were received for only about 150,000.[5]
References
[edit]- ↑ "Wis. Business Hopes To Help Break The CD Habit". NPR.org. Retrieved January 25, 2014.
- 1 2 3 "A small Wisconsin company stored thousands of people's CDs, then suddenly vanished". The Verge. December 13, 2019. Retrieved December 29, 2020.
- ↑ Alspach, Kyle (February 6, 2012). "An unusual TechStar: Murfie seeks to build huge CD store". Boston Business Journal. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
- ↑ Liederbach, Kayla (February 27, 2014). "Lossless streaming on Sonos, worldwide!". Murfie. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
- 1 2 3 Hauer, Sarah. "Defunct music storage service Murfie's assets acquired by another company". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved November 19, 2020.