Exclusive: Music collaboration platform [untitled] raises $4.6M

A New York-based startup has raised $4.6 million in seed funding for its build-out of a music collaboration platform, the cofounders and co-CEOs exclusively tell Axios. The company's name is: [untitled]. Yes, that's the name, and we didn't forget to fill in the brackets.

Why it matters: Collaboration tools have helped improve productivity and become lucrative investments — the latest example being Figma's $20 billion sale to Adobe.

Details: The co-founders — Dan Lilienthal and Jose Chayet — say software has underserved the music industry.

• "Artists are using around eight to 10 tools, if not more, to manage their creative process," Chayet says. "[That] has really led to a lot of fragmentation, a lot of friction, and a lot of uncaptured creativity."
• General Catalyst led the seed round. Looking Glass Capital, Shine Capital, Not Boring Capital and angel investors also participated.

Catch up quick: Lilienthal and Chayet are childhood friends whose families both immigrated from Mexico City to San Diego. They bonded over how their brothers loved and played music.

• They started working on [untitled] in 2020, after Lilienthal graduated from college and Chayet quit his job at Facebook.

How it works: It's an app on mobile, web and desktop that helps subscribers manage music creations, so that means recording, storing and sharing all of those related files in one place.

• Daniel Park, a product designer who worked at Facebook and website building platform Universe, recently joined as part of the founding team. Tebs Maqubela, head of A&R at Hillman Grad Records, serves as an adviser.

The bottom line: "You see the amount of songs being uploaded to Spotify every day growing," Lilienthal says. "If we just give people these beautiful tools, hopefully, we can increase that output a little bit and make it even more delightful for more people to engage in the creative process."