CD Barter Trading Site Gets $9 Million!

The venture capital boys are at it again...Bain Capital Ventures and Ignition Partners have provided Lala.com, a Palo Alto internet site, with $9 million.

Lala is modeled after Peerflix, which trades DVDs. This “swapmeet” model certainly isn’t new. As recently as a few years ago there were numerous online swap meets; most of them are presently out of business.

Lala enables members to trade unwanted CDs in exchange for those they’d like to have. Members pay $1 per CD, plus 49-cents in postage.

If Lala survives it will be due to two factors. First, a commendable awareness of giving back to artists. Twenty percent of the firm’s revenues are funneled back to the artists, something no other online site or used record store does.

Additionally, their goal is to have 3 million CD titles online. (Less than 150,000 are available on iTunes and digital music services.) Consumers will have the option of buying new CDs and, eventually, digital music.