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Brands & Merch Digital
Coke may invest in Spotify
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 12 October 2012
Coca-Cola wants a slice of Spotify, or so it seems. And if you are routinely battling a backlash in the anti-big-business grass roots music community, how better to fight back than by having a frequently-controversial global uber-brand as a shareholder? Still, Jack White did write Coke bosses that lovely little song that time, and so what if Mark Thomas keeps trying to convince us they are evil?
So, yes, the Swedish streaming music company is in the process of raising new finance, and according to Sky the soft drinks giant is in discussions about pumping about $10 million into the business. Given that the latest round of investment could value the Spotify company at $4 billion, that’s not going to give Coke a particularly significant shareholding in the digital firm, though their involvement could be significant in other ways, with both positive and negative impact.
The proposed investment, which Sky’s sources reckon could be completed in a few weeks, isn’t a complete surprise, given Spotify and Coke already have a marketing partnership in place, originally announced back at that thrilling press conference in April. And on the up side for Spotify, the investment might mean that the drinks firm stays interested in its latest digital music partnership a bit longer than it did in MyCokeMusic, one of the UK’s earliest download stores.
