MOG preps a mobile app for SXSW showdown with Spotify

Be prepared for a music startup showdown in Austin. MOG, a Berkeley-based music streaming startup, will debut its mobile app a day before its European rival Spotify takes the stage at the SXSW festival two weeks from now.

Since piracy is easy on laptops, mobile apps are an absolute must-have for paid music streaming services. Spotify’s mobile apps, which are only available to paying customers, cache playlists so users can listen to songs even if they don’t have an active Internet connection. MOG differentiates itself by offering a host of features like nested search, thousands of blog posts a week and radio modes around any artist in its library.

MOG is planning to unveil its mobile app on March 15, a day before Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek is set to give a keynote at the Austin technology conference. The Swedish music streaming startup has kept quiet about its forthcoming U.S. launch. But TechCrunch reported that the company had secured funding from Founders Fund, a firm that counts Napster co-founder Sean Parker among its partners.

Spotify may have to launch in the U.S. with just three of the four major record labels, after Warner Music Group told the BBC last month that it was backing away from licensing songs to free music streaming services. It may be betting that traction among users and advertisers will convince Warner to give in eventually. MOG, however, is paid-only so it sidesteps the problem.

Both companies are vying to make music subscriptions mainstream, despite lackluster results from earlier startups in the space. MOG offers more than 6 million songs for $5 a month. While Spotify has a free, advertising-supported version of its service, it will likely make most of its revenue off subscriptions at around $10 to 15 a month. Earlier this year, Spotify senior vice president Paul Brown said the company had 250,000 subscriptions, meaning the company is bringing in between $41 and $51 million in revenue a year at least, factoring in exchange rates and excluding advertising revenue.

MOG is also set to go head-to-head with Spotify on its home turf, after raising $9.5 million last week to fund expansion in Europe and secure distribution deals with consumer device manufacturers.