Spotify acquires 4th company in 3 months and seems willing to buy more

Reportedly, according to Music Business World, streaming coloss Spotify is investing heavily to stay ahead of the competition. The company, indeed, just announced its fourth acquisition of 2017 so far: French artificial intelligence startup Niland.

In a statement, Spotify explained that the Paris-based company had already “changed the game for how AI technology can optimize music search and recommendation capabilities [and] shares Spotify’s passion for surfacing the right content to the right user at the right time”. Probably Niland’s machine learning expertise will be instrumental to further boost Spotify’s music discovery offering, which remains rooted in The Echo Nest – acquired for under $60m in May 2015.

Moreover Spotify is expected to post over $300m in operating losses for 2016, with annual revenues predicted to top $3bn. Some of Spotify’s funds will reportedly be used to pay M&A veteran Sheila Spence, who is reportedly joining the company from ad giant WPP as VP of Corporate Development.

If Spotify manages to pull off a direct listing on the NYSE at a valuation of $13bn, it should have some spare capital to invest in other purchases...