Spotify seems to be moving towards an IPO, a number of new hires suggest that the Swedes are almost ready to go public.
It's appointed four new board members:
- Tom Staggs former Disney chief operations officer
- Padmasree Warrior, Cisco Systems chief technology and strategy officer
- Shishir Mehrotra who's YouTube's head of product and a longtime Google senior official
- Cristina Stenbeck a prominent Swedish investor
Between them, they bring a degree of business acumen and corporate polish which could help the start-up to pull-off a successful public offering.
The company also settled a legal case relating to unpaid royalties last week by setting up a $43.4m compensation fund. This lingering legal action had been seen as a factor which could stall a potential IPO.
Drake's 'One Dance' was the most-streamed song on Spotify last year
In March, Spotify sailed passed the milestone of securing 50 million paying users - it reached the 40 million mark in September of last year.
That was up from 30 million in March of 2016, suggesting that the company is experiencing rapid growth, even as competitors like Apple Music try to eat into its lead in the streaming market.
Last summer, the company announced that it passed 100 million active users when non-premium accounts are included.
Goldman Sachs recently released a research note which forecasts that revenues generated by music streaming companies will double between now and 2030 - rising to annual revenues of $104bn.
