SoundCloud Ltd.’s owners are considering a sale that could value the German music streaming company at $1 billion as it looks for ways to boost growth and profit from its user base, according to people familiar with the matter.

SoundCloud’s founders and investors, including investment firm Doughty Hanson & Co., are exploring strategic options for the company that could lead to a sale, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the discussions are private. While the owners have been thinking about a potential sale for some time, the deliberations are at an early stage and the company may decide against pursuing a deal, the people said.

The owners have had trouble finding a buyer willing to value the company at $1 billion so far, two of the people said. SoundCloud raised $70 million from Twitter Inc. in June, part of a $100 million funding round that priced the company at $700 million, a person familiar with the matter said at the time.

SoundCloud is working to generate reliable revenue from its approximately 175 million users, who spend time on the site to record, listen to and share songs. SoundCloud introduced a premium service in March, allowing customers to pay $10 a month for ad-free streaming and increased access to songs. It was a dramatic change to a more mainstream model, favored by larger players such as Apple Inc., and Spotify Ltd., for a company that had found its niche hosting music uploaded by DJs and musicians.

A representative for SoundCloud and a spokesman for Doughty Hanson didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

In 2014, the last year that SoundCloud publicly reported its accounts, sales rose 54 percent to 17.3 million euros ($19 million) from a year earlier. The operating loss at the time was 39 million euros, widening from 21.3 million euros in 2013.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-said-to-mull-1-billion-sale-of-music-service

Let`s hope Apple does not take an interest...........

 

Oh, here comes the bullshit. $10 a month is really a lot of money; what other tiered use/access is on the way? Is the ultimate goal of the takeover/makeover to generate more revenue for Soundcloud, or for those who provide its "content?" Will the new owner of Soudcloud do something about the fact that all the tracks on a page or a playlist can be downloaded by copy/pasting the URL into JDownloader?

Whatever – I've come to expect every service upon which I rely for the representation of my music online to be modified, re-developed, or co-opted beyond usablitity or feasibility.

 

Without any of us there would be no dollar(s) for them

 

obviously... but what is "us"? Small diy musicians? they are getting backed by big investment firms too.
if there are enough listeners who suscribe to their stuff or see the ads, they dont care about all the small fishes, that barely generate traffic on their site.

i mean all those guys on audiosex combined probably cant match the clicks on a... beyonce track... just for example.
what do these guys want to achieve there?

i feel that companys value is totally blown up. some things ive read on wikipedia are .."100 million investment here, 70 million from twitter there"...

i mean are they all nuts, where is all that money comin from?


some people upload music they made on their servers. how is there xxxmillion bucks in that business model?

they sure will blow it up to some bs.

"!investment firm Doughty Hanson & Co." hahahahah they want to make soundcoud competetive to apple.

they are trying to match a kinda mostly diy community to apple music? 10 $ subscription model?

I dont exactly get what these guys are trying to do there. I mean it is perfectly reasonable to offer pro accounts, with more upload time and stats, or put some banners here and there.

besides, back in the day they were unable to even develop a cool playback system, took them years.

but I believe they know what they are doing on the business side. they plan ahead. maybe even 10 years.
they want to make soundcloud a big player like apple and spotify.

they have continuos growing user rates (from 2010 - 1 million to 2012 - 10 million, woha!) if id be good at math id say thats exponential growth.

the big 3

apple spotify soundcloud.

 

For me the audiosex community is an achievement in and of itself.
A fellowship of great and like minds. Communing for one simple purpose: that which sounds good.
The oppurtunity for revenue has become this generation's source of enlightenment and evolution.
I appreciate Soundcloud, Spotify and even Apple (with their CoreMIDI and APIs) but just like anything in this world when something cool and worthwhile is exposed, the vultures come down and pick it clean.
I don't want to sound pretentious but music is at it's finest when it is an artistic expression. The moment it becomes about money, yes, it sells and becomes widespread but it's rarely ever real. We all know that true art will always find a place in someone's life and heart and soul and be financially rewarding at some point. Just don't wait for it to be in the lifetime it was created.

Of course, many in this world could argue that sales in business is an art all unto itself.

I say, fuck all the nonsense and keep it about the music.
In the end, we WILL reap what we sow. From the truth to the fake and all the middlings inbetween.