Several big news items came out of France-based Deezer today. The on-demand streaming service has secured €100 million (about $109 million) in a funding round led by Access Industries and including participation from Orange. The influx of money will go toward growing the service’s audience, introducing new products and features, and building more programmed experiences for listeners.
Both of the investors pointed to Deezer’s innovation in discussing the music company’s prospects. “The explosion of music streaming creates a unique opportunity to build a truly personalized service for listeners,” said Guillaume d’Hauteville, Vice Chairman of Access Industries. “Deezer is at the leading edge of this change with a differentiated offering that emphasizes unique localized experiences.”
The language about “programmed experiences” is eye-catching, but the company hasn’t given any detail about what those might be. Deezer has been putting resources into its new talk content library, so it may be looking for other new approaches to content that will differentiate its offerings from the other global leaders.
Lumped in with the financing news, Deezer also announced that it has increased the size of its music catalog. According to the press release, the library exceeds 40 million songs and is “the largest music catalogue available globally.”
Deezer had discussed plans for an IPO in the fall of 2015, but wound up postponing that action and crediting the choice to “market conditions.” Between then and today’s news, the company has also made headlines for joining Apple CarPlay and working with Facebook on a native audio product.