SoundCloud builds out features and ponders sale

SoundCloud is reportedly considering a sale of the company. Unnamed sources told Bloomberg that the online audio company’s leaders are looking for paths to boosting growth and profit. At this stage, $1 billion is being floated as the target price, but Bloomberg’s sources said the team was having some trouble finding an interested buyer at that cost. The sources noted that any talks are still preliminary and the team could eventually decide against a sale plan.

SoundCloud has made several developments in its audio offerings over the past year. The company launched a subscription service in March and has secured partnerships for advertising on its free listening tiers in multiple markets. It also added new features, such as Station seeding by artist and discovery with Suggested Tracks. Most recently, SoundCloud introduced Albums. It’s an option for creators who want to take the more traditional approach in presenting their work for listeners instead of uploading a collection of unconnected tracks. These updates bring SoundCloud’s feature set closer in line with what other on-demand platforms have.