Dan Gilbert, Cleveland Cavaliers owner invest in Genius Project


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Cleveland Calaviers owner has been put his $3.4 billion to good use, first he spent $42 million to bring  Lebron James back to Cleveland and now he invested $40 million in the “Genius Project”.  The “Genius Project” is an app platform for decoding complex rap lyrics.  Gilbert explained why he made the investment.

Have you heard of a newly released app, web site, business concept or technology and thought to yourself: “Why doesn’t this already exist?” The gap it fills and problem it solves seems so simple and common sense that you start asking yourself: “Why didn’t I think of that?!” That was my response when I first heard of Rap Genius, originally a crowdsourced platform for decoding complex rap lyrics.

For nearly four decades, rap (and hip-hop culture in general) has been one of the most influential music genres of our time. Rap and Hip-Hop have transcended from music into

fashion, sports, politics, film and pop culture.

Since its debut in 2009, Rap Genius has caught on in a big way among artists and the public, allowing everyone to dive into the lyrics of hip-hop music to find a deeper and better understanding of the creators’ original intent. In addition, the burgeoning company has entered into licensing partnerships with all of the major music publishers, as well as dozens of smaller ones.

Friday, Rap Genius took their concept to a completely new level by re-launching the platform as ‘Genius’ (genius.com). With a new name and a broader scope, Genius takes a huge step toward fulfilling its mission to crowdsource the annotation of ALL TEXT on the internet (that’s right—the entire web)….

Genius is a place where community and technology combine perfectly to revolutionize the way we read and consume information. I am excited to invest in Genius (through Detroit Venture Partners (DVP)) along with Andreessen Horowitz, among others. I am also looking forward to joining the Board of Directors with Ben Horowitz and the company’s founders, Tom Lehman and Ilan Zechory. From the moment I met them, I knew the creativity and passion of Ilan and Tom, as well as the other team members of Genius, would propel them to build something very special. Sometimes you can ‘feel’ a winner even before they speak a single word.


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