GarageBand raises $2.5 million to revamp; will it piss off Apple?

San Francisco music sharing site GarageBand has raised $2.5 million in a first round of funding to launch a new music taste-matching service, iLike.com.

The company, which crashed after the Internet bubble burst and relaunched in 2002, already has a similar name to Apple’s music recording service, Garageband, and is now launching a service with an “i” in front, and which is designed to add new music from GarageBand’s own music artists to a user’s iTunes account, according to VentureWire (sub required). ILike also sounds like iLife, which is Apple’s media division housing Garageband. Confused?

So Apple may like this, or feel name stalked, we don’t know.

Like several other new music services, iLike will try to expose users to new music by searching for their existing tastes and music enjoyed by their social network. Until now, Garage has let users upload their own music, and has featured the music judged the most popular.

The company says it has 4 million unique visitors a month.

The funding comes from David Weiden, of Khosla Ventures and Bob Pittman, former chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner. Weiden is the guy at Khosla Ventures who is investing in information technology, and we’re told Khosla is looking to hire more partners to help invest in this area.