Murfie
Defunct commercial music streaming service
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. Additionally, members could digitize and store CDs and LPs they sent from home to Murfie. Murfie was featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, Time magazine, and National Public Radio.
 | 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
- ↑ "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.