Rythm Launches to Revolutionize Group Listening
Rythm, the world’s first community-based group listening music platform, officially launched today.
Founded by entrepreneur and engineer Yoav Zimet in 2016 as a music app on Discord, it returns to the platform now backed by leading venture capital firms and industry investors.
In its new iteration, for the first time, Rythm has also secured global licensing rights with top music companies to stream today’s biggest artists. Rythm is fostering connection and discovery by allowing people online to listen to music together from all over the world.
“I originally created Rythm as a way for me and my friends to connect over our mutual love for discovering and sharing music while gaming, but it quickly grew to become much more than that,” said Yoav Zimet, CEO & Co-Founder of Rythm. “We’ve created the new experience with the goal of bringing Rythm back better than ever, reuniting the previous community and further expanding to new listeners. We were able to do this thanks to our team, our partners and our amazing community who stuck with us. I’m so excited for what’s to come; this is just the beginning.”
Rythm’s 21-year-old CEO & Co-Founder Yoav Zimet initially founded the music app as a passion project at just 14 years old to create a space for online communities to share and discover music with one another. It soon became Discord’s most popular music app. In 2021, it shut down but Zimet remained committed to the return of Rythm and its community. He partnered with CTO & Co-Founder Oliy Barrett to properly relaunch the app.
In the past two years, Zimet and Barrett have raised capital from leading VCs including Corazon Capital, Mucker Capital, CRUSH Ventures, along with top artists and music management powerhouses Laffitte Management Group, Black Squirrel Partners, and co-founder of Q Prime Peter Mensch. Now, Rythm is on a mission to cultivate the largest global group listening community by reaching people where they live and engage most — online.
“Yoav created an innovative consumer experience that will revolutionize the music industry, building one of the most successful apps on Discord and proving the power of social music listening,” said Sam Yagan, Co-Founder of Corazon Capital and Director at Rythm. “In my time as a founder and investor, I can’t remember another community as large and engaged as Rythm’s anticipating the return of a beloved product and I look forward to supporting this new chapter in Rythm’s growth.”
On Rythm, music fans will be able to listen to and find new artists alongside their friends, from the biggest global acts to rising independent musicians. The music app currently boasts a catalog of over 50 million songs across all genres. The platform’s intuitive product suite includes “Sessions,” allowing users to stream and share songs with one another in real time while messaging, video chatting, and more. For a more tailored listening experience, the platform also features genre and mood-themed radio stations curated by the company and its community.
Rythm offers two subscription tiers: free and premium. Free subscribers can listen along to premium-tier friends’ Sessions and curated radio stations, while premium subscribers will have the ability to host Sessions for up to 20 listeners, determine who can add music to their Sessions, and receive unlimited access to Rythm’s extensive catalog for only $4.99 per month + tax. As a result of its licensing deals with leading music companies, Rythm helps ensure artists and songwriters are paid fairly. Song streams are calculated by the number of listeners in a session: for example, when a song is played in a session with 20 listeners it counts as 20 streams. By fostering music discovery through group listening, Rythm hopes to generate a healthy revenue stream for artists and songwriters and help them build their fanbase.
Rythm will also be launching a mobile app later this year. Sign up for the waitlist here and be one of the first to experience it.
