Story by
Courtney Boyd Myers
Courtney Boyd Myers is the founder of audience.io, a transatlantic company designed to help New York and London based technology startups gr Courtney Boyd Myers is the founder of audience.io, a transatlantic company designed to help New York and London based technology startups grow internationally. Previously, she was the Features Editor and East Coast Editor of TNW covering New York City startups and digital innovation. She loves magnets + reading on a Kindle. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter @CBM and Google +.
Spotify‘s $100 million funding round, which began in February, was just officially reported as final by AllThingsD. The investment round included DST Global, the Russian investment firm that has also taken big stakes in Facebook and Groupon, as well as funding from Accel and Kleiner Perkins. The funding round gives Europe’s favorite streaming music service a valuation of $1 billion.
Spotify’s existing investors include Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook fame, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing and firms Wellington Partners and Northzone Ventures. The new money will likely be used for Spotify’s much anticipated U.S. launch. According to AllThingsD, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has U.S. licensing deals with three of the four big music labels, and is in advanced talks with holdout Warner Music Group.
Spotify’s valuation and the fact that it will likely be in the U.S. and on Facebook within the year does not bode well for the USA-only Pandora that announced its IPO and whopping $3 billion dollar valuation this week. Pandora is already down to $2.1 million after getting slammed in the markets yesterday and its future isn’t looking any more promising.
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