# Cantora

> Cantora is a VC fund in New York backing Events, SaaS and Audio. See 3 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: New York, United States
- Total investments: 3
- Last investment: Nov 2014
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/1766990/
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/cantorarecords
- Website: http://cantora.com/
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WeAreCantora

Cantora is a music company that invests in and develops artists, startup technologies and live entertainment experiences. Cantora is known for signing bands like MGMT and Bear Hands, investing in and executing the music industry strategy for startups like Sonic Notify and BioBeats, and for creating live event properties like Smartwater’s Music TechSmartlounge and the immersive events brain trust Mainframe Group. Cantora was founded by Will Griggs, Nick Panama, and Jesse Israel in 2005.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Cantora. Shizune tracks 1 team members at Cantora. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/cantora?utm_source=investor_profile

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Events | 2 | 67% |
| SaaS | 1 | 33% |
| Audio | 1 | 33% |
| Local | 1 | 33% |
| Content | 1 | 33% |

18 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 2 | 67% |
| Series A | 1 | 33% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 2 | 67% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 33% |

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Will Griggs | Founder | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/will-griggs |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Seen | Seen’s mission is to connect people more deeply to the world and their collective stories by making every event visible. New tools for a new type of media, Seen identifies signal in the noise of the real time web, reconstructing stories from their social data. At the heart of Seen is an engine that can automatically surface real-time trends withinfeeds. Seen is built on Google award-winning research, and was selected as one of the first companies for The New York Times incubator initiative, | $1.3M | Seed | Nov 03, 2014 |  |
| BioBeats | BioBeats is a human company that creates digital artificial intelligence products to tackle mental health globally. Mental and substance use disorders constitute 10.4% of the global burden of disease and are the leading cause of disability among all disease groups. The global direct and indirect economic costs of mental disorders were estimated atUS$2.5 trillion in 2010, and are growing. Both direct and indirect costs of mental disorders are expected to double by 2030.Current clinical and social provisions are inadequate and rely on therapeutic devices that cannot track neurological and physiological correlates to psychological progress. Smartphones and wearables brought real-time data. BioBeats is the result of 15 years of research, 5 of which have been in commercial/clinical/consumer deployment. Their team fuses work at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the Social Cognition Lab at the University of Oxford to use real-time data not only to bring physiological data to psychological therapy but to produce machine learning that can predict the onset of the disorder and intervene early.BioBeats was established in 2012 and is based in London, England, United Kingdom. | $650K | Seed | Aug 01, 2013 |  |
| Signal360 (formerly Sonic Notify) | Signal360 is the leading in-venue mobile notification platform for real-time user engagement. Signal360's platform uses cross-platform patented inaudible-sound mobile notification technologies as well as the emerging BLE standard (full support for iBeacon and Android BLE) to wirelessly enable retail locations to interact with customersthrough existing consumer mobile apps, retailer-specific mobile apps, and/or custom created apps. | $4.3M | Series A | Jul 16, 2012 |  |

3 of 3 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Digital Entertainment Ventures (DEV)](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dev) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Eniac Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/eniac-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Future Perfect Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/future-perfect-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Horizons Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/horizons-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [K5 Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/k5launch) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [KEC Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/kec-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## Similar investors

### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund
- [Right Side Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/right-side-capital-management) — VC Fund

## FAQ

### What does Cantora invest in?

Cantora invests primarily in Events, SaaS and Audio startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 3 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### How do I contact Cantora?

Public channels for Cantora include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.

### Who are the partners at Cantora?

The team at Cantora includes Will Griggs (Founder). The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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