Spotify has acquired no less than nine separate businesses over the past three-and-a-bit years, for a total concern in excess of $120m.
According to new company documents, Spotify bought one company in 2015 for €7.3m (US $8.1m). That was almost certainly Seed Scientific, a consultancy firm specializing in data science and analytics.
Spotify confirmed the buyout in June that year.
In 2016, says Spotify’s new filing, it acquired another three businesses for a total consideration of €7.2m ($8m).
These three companies are thought to be Dublin-based music discovery startup Soundwave (announced Jan 2016), photo and video compilation aggregator CrowdAlbum (April 2016) and cloud-based subscription startup Preact (November 2016).
As previously covered on MBW, Spotify has acquired four companies in the first half of 2017 alone: French AI startup Niland (announced May 2017); UK data/audio recognition startup Sonalytic (March 2017); TV recommendation platform MightyTV (also March 2017); and blockchain tech startup MediaChain (April 2017).
The total cost for these four companies, according to Spotify’s documents – paid for via a combination of cash and stock – was €39 million ($42m).
In total, since the start of 2015, that amounts to €53.5m ($58m).
In March 2014, Spotify acquired The Echo Nest for a total consideration of €49.7m ($66m) – a deal which included €5.1m in cash, plus 57,929 shares of common stock in the streaming firm
Counting that deal, Spotify has spent a cumulative €103.2m ($124m) on acquisitions over the past three years (and three months) by purchasing nine businesses – all of which have seen their key teams folded into Spotify’s own brain-center.
Daniel Ek‘s company posted record revenues of $3.3bn in 2016, but suffered a net loss of nearly $600m.
(All currency exchanges above based on average annual rates for relevant years.)Music Business Worldwide
