Music streaming service Spotify raises $250M led by Technology Crossover Ventures; valued over $4B

Online music-streaming service Spotify has secured $250 million led by Silicon Valley-based Technology Crossover Ventures to boost its operations in the US and the deal values it at $4 billion, according to Wall Street Journal, which first reported the deal.

In the recent past, Swedish startup Spotify closed two rounds of funding valued at $100 million each from various investors, including Goldman Sachs, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Digital Sky Technologies. The company, which competes with Pandora in the US, has more than doubled its revenue in 2012 to $571 million.

Spotify is one of the leading music streaming services in the world with around 24 million active users, of whom 6 million are premium subscribers. It has 10-50 million downloads on Android platform alone.

Although Spotify is not available in India, its funding and valuation should boost confidence of Indian peers including Saavn, Dhingana, Gaana, Hungama and Raaga. Among these, Dhingana has already raised more than $7 million from investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Inventus Capital Partners and Helion Venture Partners. Last month, Dhingana said that it had crossed 9 million monthly active unique users.

The key for Indian music streaming ventures would be finding a way to get premium/paid subscribers which can translate the user base into big revenues.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)