Emotive Communications, a mobile music startup founded by Anthony Stonefield (founder and CEO of Moviso), has received $7.7 million in funding from some heavyweight names. The first round included The D. E. Shaw group, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Warner Music Group and media and telecom angel investors, the Encino, CA-based company said.
The company’s main product is “Push Ringer” (what James called Ringforward tone in his 2006 predictions), the reverse of ringback in some sense. It enables a caller to push an outgoing ringtone to the receiving phone allowing the caller, not the called person, to set the tone. The chosen ringer is transmitted to the recipient’s handset and temporarily overrides the phone’s pre-set ringer. The ringers could be audio, video, animations, avatars or flash files. If the called person likes the ringtone, the service also enables them to buy a copy of the ringtone for their own phone.
Skype users have a similar service since 2006 called ”Ringjacker”.
More details on the funding in the company PDF release here.