daniel ek
Daniel Ek’s Neko Health raises $65M for preventative healthcare through full-body scans
Neko Health, the health tech startup co-founded by Spotify co-creator Daniel Ek, has raised €60 million ($65 million) in its first external round of funding. The Series A round was…
Neko, Daniel Ek’s next play, is another spin on preventative healthcare
Make room for yet another preventative health play: Spotify founder Daniel Ek officially confirmed rumors of his new “health tech” startup, Neko, Friday by quietly kicking off a body scanning…
Spotify is expanding video podcast publishing to creators in six more countries
Spotify is expanding the ability to post video podcasts for creators in six new countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil and Mexico. This marks the first time the audio…
Spotify is testing new tools that will allow you to record, edit and publish podcasts directly from the company’s main app. The company introduced this feature in New Zealand last…
Layoffs hit crypto and real estate tech particularly hard this week
Hey Siri, when does a “macroeconomic downturn” become a “recession”? It’s another bleak week for startups weathering dismal tech stocks and even worse cryptocurrency prices. But let’s start with some…
Spotify hypes the revenue potential of podcasts and audiobooks at its second Investor Day event
In its second Investor Day, streaming service Spotify updated the financial community about its potential for further growth and monetization, despite the overall economic downturn impacting the tech sector. The…
Daniel Ek pumps $50 million into Spotify: ‘I believe our best days are ahead’
Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek said on Friday that he’s pouring $50 million into the music streaming service, driving its stock price up by more than 3% to a high of…
Spotify must be more transparent about its rules of the road
Companies once believed they could rely on algorithms to catch inappropriate content and intervene with public relations in high-profile cases. Today, the challenges are bigger and more complicated.
The Spotify-Rogan saga highlights the distinction between publishers and platforms
As our Equity podcast recently asked, “How many times must Spotify step on a rake?” The streaming service is learning the hard way that it’s counterintuitive to act as both…
Spotify will invest $100M in content from underrepresented creators, says CEO Daniel Ek
In the latest installment of the Spotify-Rogan saga, CEO Daniel Ek sent out a company memo on Sunday addressing Joe Rogan’s use of harmful racial slurs in past episodes of…
Daniel Ek puts €100M into defence startup Helsing.ai, to support democracies
Just over a year ago, Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek pledged €1 billion ($1.2 billion) of his personal fortune toward funding deep tech “moonshot projects” spread across the next 10 years.…
Spotify says US podcast listeners now use its service more than Apple Podcasts
In September, analysts at eMarketer predicted Spotify was poised to overtake Apple Podcasts in U.S. listenership sometime this year. Today, Spotify announced for the first time it may have succeeded…
Spotify partners with Shopify to add merch to artists’ profiles
Spotify this morning announced a new partnership with e-commerce platform provider Shopify that will allow artists on its service to connect their Spotify profiles with their Shopify stores, allowing them…
‘The days of our ad business accounting for less than 10% of our total revenue are behind us, and going forward, I expect ads to be a substantial part of…
How to identify unicorn founders when they’re still early-stage
The easiest traits to recognize as an investor is the founder’s ability to ace the fundraising process, crucial to which is the ability to think strategically and influence, inspire and…
Pale Blue Dot aims to be Europe’s premier early-stage climate investor and has $100 million to prove it
When Hampus Jakobsson, Heidi Lindvall and Joel Larsson, all well-known players in the European venture ecosystem, began talking about their new firm Pale Blue Dot, they began by looking at…
Spotify rolls out redesigned desktop and web apps
Spotify today announced it’s rolling out a new look for its streaming service on the desktop, with the launch of a redesigned app for both Mac and Windows, as well…
Daily Crunch: Amazon unveils its own game-streaming platform
Amazon announces a new game service and plenty of hardware upgrades, tech companies team up against app stores and United Airlines tests a program for rapid COVID-19 testing. This is…
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek pledges $1Bn of his wealth to back deeptech startups from Europe
At an online event today, Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify, said he would invest 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) of his personal fortune in deeptech “moonshot projects”, spread across…
Recorded music revenue is up on streaming growth, as physical sales plummet
With touring ground to a halt for the foreseeable future, 2020 has become the most difficult year for musicians in recent memory. One’s ability to survive on music depends on…
Spotify’s founding story is going to be a Netflix series
Facebook’s founding got the movie treatment with Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Network.” The story of how Snapchat came to be will be a flagship series on the upcoming streaming service,…
The EU will reportedly investigate Apple following anti-competition complaint from Spotify
The spat between Spotify and Apple is going to be the focus on a new investigation from the EU, according to a report from the FT. The paper reported today…
Spotify says it paid $340M to buy Gimlet and Anchor
Spotify doubled down on podcasts last week with a double deal to buy podcast networks Gimlet and Anchor. Those acquisitions were initially undisclosed, but Spotify has quietly confirmed that it…
Samsung didn’t just unveil new devices like the Galaxy Home, the Galaxy Watch and of course the new Galaxy Note 9 at its Unpacked event this morning — it also…
Spotify misses on revenue in first earnings report with 170M users
In Spotify’s first ever earnings report, the streaming music came up a little short, pulling in $1.36 billion revenue in Q1 2018. That’s compared to Wall Street’s estimates of $1.4…
Spotify launches in Thailand to continue its Asia push
While talk of Spotify’s apparent upcoming IPO continues in the U.S., the music streaming service is furthering its coverage of Asia after it launched its service in Thailand. Spotify Premium,…
Student.com Bags $60M To Grow The Reach Of Its Student Digs Marketplace
Student.com, an accommodation marketplace founded back in 2011 (as ‘Overseas Student Living’ before rebranding last year) to focus specifically on the needs of international students, is announcing a $60 million…
Three Things You Can Count on: Death, Taxes, Spotify's Arrogance
When we first wrote about Spotify’s arrogance there was at least some cause behind it. The company had built a beautiful online music service that early adopters were swooning over.…
Spotify Consumes More Internet Capacity Than All Of Sweden
Today, during his keynote address at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek had a big revelation: “On certain days, we’re consuming more Internet capacity than Sweden…
Spotify strikes deal with IODA, adds 2 million more tracks
Ooh, Spotify, you get more handsome every time we see you. It wasn’t enough to announce plans to launch in the US, or the upcoming Android and iPhone apps, was…