Spotify is reportedly working on raising $400 million in funding, unnamed sources told The Wall Street Journal (paywall article here). This funding round values the company at $8.4 billion. the report appears to be an extension of an earlier WSJ report of Spotify’s funding aspirations, in which it was purportedly seeking $500M.
Industry leaders have been speculating as to when Spotify may pursue an IPO for a long time, but the streaming service has not given any hint about a plan to sell. The company has been posting strong growth in its user base, with 60 million listeners and 15 million paying subscribers as of January, but it hasn’t been able to turn that popularity into a business model that puts it in the black. Its successful fundraising and high valuation show that it is still a force to be reckoned with in the current music market (for comparison, Pandora was last valued at about $3.5 billion). The influx of money could also help Spotify fend off the upcoming competition from Apple’s anticipated streaming platform and whatever Google has in store with YouTube Music Key.
Spotify’s available track library is somewhat incomplete, being mainly almost the identical library that Last.fm used for many years. Big gaps for almost anything earlier than 2000, you’ll find many missing artists, often in lesser-known genres. And when looking some artists up, even their back catalog may be missing some albums as well. Common with anything outside the ‘hitmakers’.