Music site GarageBand.com gets $2.5 million in venture capital

GarageBand.com, an online advertising-supported site which caters to listeners of “emerging” music with reviews and peer-to-peer sharing of CDs, will receive $2.5 million in equity financing in its first round of institutional investment, it said this week. Plans include the launch of music sharing site iLike.com.

Khosla Ventures and partner David Weiden led the investment round, with additional investors including former AOL chief and MTV co-founder Bob Pittman and Herbert Allen of Allen & Co. Pittman will also join the GarageBand.com board of directors, along with David Goldberg, head of Yahoo Music.

The iLike service will expand GarageBand.com’s range of service by adding mainstream artists, offering online links for music-sharing, and providing tools designed for users of iPods and MySpace.com, GarageBand.com said. The retailer, headed by CEO Ali Partovi, will also include an application for Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes for organizing digital music libraries.

“We believe this a great team to redefine how consumers discover music,” said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures and co-founder of Sun Microsystems Inc.