Michael Michael Breidenbrücker (born 6 January 1972) is an Austrian entrepreneur, artist and engineer. He is best known as the co-founder of ''

Last.fm Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Using a music recommender system called "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, e ...

'', a founder of

RjDj RjDj (Reality Jockey Ltd.) was a startup founded in late 2008 by last.fm co-founder Michael Breidenbruecker. The company was based in London and was run by a small team of four employees. Its mission was to create sonic experiences specifically d ...

and a partner at the venture firm Speedinvest. He has worked with musical artists such as

Hans Zimmer Hans Florian Zimmer (; born 12 September 1957) is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Academy Awards, Oscars and four Grammy Awards, Grammys, and has been nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards, Emmys and a Tony Awar ...

Imogen Heap Imogen Jennifer Heap (born 9 December 1977) is a British musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. Her work has been considered pioneering in pop and electropop music. Heap classically trained in piano, cello and clarinet starting at a ...

Air The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...

and

Booka Shade Booka Shade is a German House music, house duo. It is made up of Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier, described as veterans of the Frankfurt electronic music scene. They have released 7 studio albums including Memento (2004) Movements (2006), T ...

. In 2011, he produced Inception The App with

Christopher Nolan Christopher Edward Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British-American filmmaker. Known for his lucrative Cinema of the United States, Hollywood blockbusters with complex storytelling, Nolan is considered a leading filmmaker of the 21st century. ...

and

, which reached number 5 in the US

App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the co ...

charts. Between 2000 and 2002, he headed the masters programme in interactive digital media at

Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Ravensbourne may refer to: * Ravensbourne, Queensland, in Australia * Ravensbourne National Park, in Australia * Ravensbourne, London, in the London Borough of Bromley ** Ravensbourne railway station, serving the above area ** Ravensbourne (UK Parl ...

in London. He studied digital art at the

University of Applied Arts Vienna The University of Applied Arts Vienna (german: Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, or informally just ''Die Angewandte'') is an arts university and institution of higher education in Vienna, the capital of Austria. It has had university sta ...

with

Peter Weibel Peter Weibel (; born 5 March 1944 in Odessa, USSR) is an internationally known Austrian post-conceptual artist, curator and new media theoretician. He started out in 1964 as a visual poet but soon jumped from the page to the screen within the sen ...

Business ventures

Last.fm

In 2002, Breidenbrücker co-founded the Internet radio site for streaming music

Ltd. and managed it as CEO from 2002 until 2005. Using a recommend system called Audioscrobbler, ''Last.fm'' records users' different musical tastes and makes recommendations. The site also offers different social networking features, allowing users to share their tastes. In May 2007, the company was acquired by

CBS Interactive Paramount Streaming (formerly CBS Digital Media Group, CBS Interactive, ViacomCBS Streaming), a division of Paramount Global, oversees the company’s streaming technology and offers direct-to-consumer services, free, premium and pay. These incl ...

for US$280 million (UK£140 million). In 2003, ''Last.fm'' received an Honorary Mention in the

Prix Ars Electronica The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the best known and longest running yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria) ...

in the category Net vision.

RjDj

In 2008, he founded RjDj (Reality Jockey Ltd.), a London-based music technology startup. RjDj produced and distributed a network of mobile applications and sold additional musical content within this network. Mobile applications created with RjDj: * RjDj App * Trippy Replay * Rj Voyager * Inception The App * Dimensions The Game * Situ * The Dark Knight Rises Z+

Speedinvest

In 2011, Breidenbrücker joined the founding team of the Vienna-based venture firm Speedinvest. He was originally in the investment committee of Speedinvest. In the second Speedinvest Fund, he joined the partner team and headed the company builder Speedinvest Studio.

42matters

In 2012, he joined the team behind the Zurich-based app discover startup 42matters.

Life

Breidenbrücker was born in

Vorarlberg Vorarlberg ( , ; gsw, label= Vorarlbergisch, Vorarlbearg, , or ) is the westernmost state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is the state with the ...

, Austria, and lives there with his wife and children.

References

External links

Last.fm website

RjDj company website

Video from talk at MLOVE conference 2012

Lovely Books website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Breidenbruecker, Michael Living people 1972 births Austrian businesspeople Investors Academics of Ravensbourne University London