AUSTIN, TX — Popcuts, Inc. of Berkeley, CA was named the winner of the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator competition at SXSW in the Online Music Category. Popcuts was one of four Online Music finalists who presented on Monday, March 16 at the Downtown Austin Hilton. The jury found Popcuts "most likely to succeed and disrupt the current music distribution landscape."
Popcuts originated as the master's final project for 2008 I School graduates Kevin Mateo Lim, Hannes Hesse, and Yiming Liu.
Popcuts is an online music company providing an innovative web-based download store that gives back store credit to early discoverers of popular songs. Popcuts is centered around the idea of rewarding trendsetters and encouraging music buyers to be ahead of the curve. Songs are 99¢, and buyers are rewarded whenever a song they already own is sold again. The Popcuts music store can be found at www.popcuts.com.
Over 200 technology companies submitted their products for consideration in this inaugural Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW event. Winners were selected by a panel of judges that included iLike CEO Ali Partovi, former Wired editor Brad King and technology evangelist Guy Kawasaki.
During the presentation, Popcuts CEO and cofounder Kevin Mateo Lim said, "It's Popcuts' mission to create a win-win situation for music fans and artists in a landscape that is currently completely dysfunctional and ridden by misaligned incentives."
Popcuts cofounder Hannes Hesse said: "We're thrilled that we won this showcase, and we feel it's a sign that people are ready to tackle one of the biggest problems of the music industry: the core economics."
