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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Spotify has finally filed for an initial public offering [theverge.com]:

Spotify, the world's largest music streaming service, has filed for an initial public offering today [sec.gov]. The Sweden-based company co-founded by Daniel Ek, who has remained its CEO since its 2006 inception, and Martin Lorentzon has more than 71 million paying users as of December 2017. The company also enjoys an overall user base that includes ad-supported free listeners of 159 million, far outpacing the competition from Apple, Google, Tidal, and others. Spotify will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SPOT."

Spotify will be offering a direct listing, meaning that its shares can be traded on the open market sooner than with a more conventional IPO, as Spotify doesn't intend to raise a large amount of capital with its IPO. According to CNBC [theverge.com], the price of Spotify shares traded on private markets indicate the company could be worth as much as $23 billion.

The filing gives us one of our best looks yet at Spotify's finances, with the company posting revenue last year of €4,090 million (nearly $5 billion) and a net loss of -€1,235 million (or ~$1.5 billion) for the same period.

Also at TechCrunch [techcrunch.com].

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