Founder Neil Young Type of business Private | Founded 2012 | |
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Key people Neil Young, Founder;
John Hamm, CEO Products PonoPlayer audio player, PonoMusic Store Headquarters Seattle, Washington, United States Profiles | ||
PonoMusic is a company founded by Neil Young which sells an audio player (the PonoPlayer), and high-quality recordings (through the PonoMusic store). The name derives from pono ([ˈpono]), a Hawaiian word for "righteousness."
Contents
History
PonoMusic was founded in 2012 by Neil Young, along with Silicon Valley entrepreneur John Hamm as the company's CEO. Pono reportedly has backing from major record labels Warner, Sony, and Universal, and has signed a full agreement with Warner. The company launched a successful Kickstarter campaign on March 12, 2014 that surpassed its target in one day. PonoMusic raised $6.2 million by the end of the campaign.
In August 2014, PonoMusic turned to Crowdfunder to raise more equity. They closed with a total financing of $4 million. While many more international investors were interested, they had to be turned away due to regulatory restrictions. A year later Variety reported that PonoMusic struggled with funding issues, which slowed down the company expansion.
Prior to June 2015, Young had sought financial backing from Donald Trump.
Products
PonoMusic's products are based on the FLAC audio format, which the company is rebranding as Pono audio format.