Google Maps creator Lars Rasmussen exits Facebook to launch music start-up
Facebook engineering director Lars Rasmussen, who co-founded Google Maps and Google Wave when working in Australia, is leaving his post to co-founda music start-up with his fiancé,Elomida Visviki.
Officially departing Facebook in June, Rasmussen will continue to base himself in London for the new venture, called Cute Little Apps.
Rasmussen announced the new venture on Facebook: "Elo has been building what I think is a very interesting new way to compose and experience music and she needs my help! Ah it is so very good to have your help be needed ☺."
Whilst details are scarce, Visviki’s LinkedIn page lists the venue as a"super-duper still-stealthy cute little startup :)" The company’s own LinkedIn page describes it as “an Information Technology and Services company located in Clink St, London, England, United Kingdom.”
The pair also met with producers/songwriters Mary Brown (Destiny's Child, Michael Jackson, P. Diddy)and Tony Dofat (Mary J. Blige, Queen Latifah, Will Smith)on April 15. Dofat posted the following on Twitter:
Rasmussen was one of the creators behind Graph Search, a Facebook search engine,and until June will work on Facebook’s account portal for employees, Facebook at Work.The product has been closed for Beta testing since January.
Before he joined Facebook in 2010, Rasmussen’s Sydney-based company Where2 Technologies – which he co-founded with his brother Jens, Noel Gordon and Stephen Ma – was acquired by Google in August 2004. Where2 became the basis for Google Maps and Rasmussen went on to collaborate again with his brother on Google Wave, an online communication service which shut down in April 2012.
According to Visviki’s LinkedIn profile, she has experience in advertising and non-profit charities. Cute Little Apps will be her first post outside of Athens, Greece.
Facebook at Work’s development will be lead by Julien Codorniou, Facebook’s head of global partnerships and Chaitanya Mishra who will manage the engineering team. The product reportedly has tens of thousands of inbound requests from businesses looking to use it.
Rasmussen and Visviki’s new venture aligns with the industry’s leaning toward user-generated, digital audio. With the incoming of YouTube and Apple’s music services this year, as well as interest in the digital music industry spiking – in Australia, streaming subscription service income doubled to $23 million in 2014 – a venture to help musicians compose music online is a welcome one.
Image Credit:Niall Kennedy, Creative Commons