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Major investors in talks with Spotify for $400 million funding round

By | Published on Tuesday 21 April 2015

Spotify

Sky News has named a number of the high profile investors in advanced talks to buy shares in Spotify in its latest funding round. As previously reported, the company is trying to raise $400 million, which would increase its valuation to $8.4 billion.

Among the new investors is London-based hedge fund Lansdowne Partners, which profited greatly by betting on bank shares in the aftermath of the banking crisis and became one of the biggest shareholders in Royal Mail when it was privatised. They sound delightful, don’t they? In addition to Lansdowne, according to Sky sources, other new investors are the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, Baillie Gifford, DE Shaw, Discovery Capital Management, Halcyon Asset Management, Northzone, PSAM, Rinkelberg Capital and Senvest Capital.

Some existing investors are also reportedly in negotiations to increase their stakes. These are Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street bank, GSV and Technology Crossover Ventures, all of whom first invested in 2013.

It is possible that some of these investors will drop out of the running as terms are negotiated, the looming renewal of Spotify’s licensing agreement with Universal seemingly something of a sticking point.

Universal, of course, has been making bold statements about its changing views of freemium in recent months, likely as a negotiating tactic. Last month, a leaked email from Spotify claimed that it would pay out $1 billion to the major label over the next two years.



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