The week in business has been marked by surprises nobody would have expected. Google offering a landline service? Canonical collaborating with Microsoft to bring bash to Windows? Well alright then…
To make things even more interesting, Spotify inked a billion-dollar deal with multiple investors.
The debt financing will give it quite some firepower to take on the likes of Apple Music and other competitors. Interestingly, Spotify put pen to paper on this deal hot on the heels of Soundcloud’s Go – the Berlin based company’s stab at monetization through paid subscriptions.
At Index we gather tech coverage into one platform for tech enthusiasts to keep up with the news and access that data. In this series, we fill you in every week on what’s happening in Tech.
A look at the world
In the past week, Index logged 185 funding events from 25 different countries. The top 10 countries from North America and Europe in terms of number of rounds can be seen below:
North America
This week in North America there were 119 investments made at a total of $1.28 billion in capital deployment. The biggest round hauled in by a startup went to Betterment, the United States-based automated financial planning startup, which took in $100 million in a Series E round. Check out the breakdown in funding rounds this week for North America below:
Europe
Europe saw 25 funding rounds for a total of $1.31 billion, which would be higher than North America, we’re it not for the billion in debt financing received by Spotify this week. Discounting the obvious outlier, Europe’s total capital for the week was a more modest (and region-appropriate) $310 million. Check out the breakdown in funding rounds this week for the EU below:
North America x Europe
In this section we look back at the past four weeks and compare Angel and Seed level rounds, and Series A rounds in both regions.
This week’s must-reads:
Would you pay $30 to stream a movie in 4K? Sony thinks so [The Next Web}
U.S. Says It Has Unlocked iPhone Without Apple [New York Times]
Nest’s $340 million in revenue missed Google’s initial target, and things may get worse [Recode]
Meet Tesla’s Model 3, Its Long-Awaited Car for the Masses [Wired]
17 charts that show just how scary Amazon’s $275 billion business really is [Business Insider]
BMW just unveiled an IoT concept video at Build 2016 [The Next Web]
Spotify Raises $1 Billion in Debt Financing [Wall Street Journal]
Two Years Later: Facebook’s Oculus Acquisition Has Changed Virtual Reality Forever [Recode]
Your Snapchat story could soon land you a job [The Next Web]
Tune in next week for another update on the state of tech. If you can’t wait that long, consider signing up to the Index.co newsletter to get the week’s hottest tech news straight in your inbox!
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