Spotify hires Goldman to raise near $500m:
Spotify has hired Goldman Sachs to raise about $500m, a new round of financing that is expected to value the music streaming company at as much as $8bn, people familiar with the matter said.
The decision to raise further cash privately is likely to delay the Swedish company’s much-touted public listing, which many expected would occur this year.
...
The Stockholm start-up arranged a $200m line of credit last March, fuelling industry speculation the company was moving closer to an initial public offering in the US. ... –James Fontanella-Khan, Matthew Garrahan (Financial Times)
Spotify's imminent IPO: Something to really look forward to.
Spotify's growth (both in terms of user uptake, but also in terms of its existence vindicating the online music streaming model) has been phenomenal.
Really curious as to which ticker symbol Spotify will go for. Will they go with SPOT? Or SPFY? Or just SPO? 'S'is unfortunately (according to Nasdaq's timer symbol lookup tool) taken by Sprint Corporation, as is 'SP'.
In unrelated news: An interesting article from Fortune about Goldman Sachs and SXSW (SXSW being the conference that spawned two of the major mid-2000s 'Web 2.0' startups: FourSquare and Twitter. It is, however, like Burning Man, less of a cultural phenomenon nowadays).
Goldman Sachs's interest in SXSW is an example of its realignment of priorities: Shifting away from a traditional focus on financial services and the industrial/non-tech business sector, and towards a two-pronged approach towards the technological front.
Firstly, to become a technological–financial business: The task of becoming a tech company faster than a tech company can become and replace it (as an investment bank, a financial services company, a company for managing IPOs, ...).
Secondly, to provide financial services (such as raising funds, managing an IPO, ...) to technology companies: big and small.
In further unrelated news: Still running this blog without a domain at the moment. It's not a major priority at the moment, but still something that preoccupies me and sits at the back of my mind. A certain nagging sensation.
Did a quick search online and have found two options so far: oped.space, and op-ed.io. Still haven't made up my mind yet about it.