Last month there were rumors that the world's largest music streaming platform, Spotify, was interested in acquiring Soundcloud, a similar service but more focused on independent artists and that also allows the broadcast of podcasts, as a formula to expand your catalog, your volume of users, and help them discover more music of their liking.
Negotiations between both platforms seemed very advanced however, Spotify would have finally declined continue in the same so that the merger between the great rival of Google Play Music or Apple Music and Soundcloud will not occur.
Soundcloud and Spotify will continue separately
After months of negotiations between Spotify and Soundcloud, Techcrunch has published which Spotify has ruled out acquiring this service due to concerns that this purchase could negatively affect an impending IPO. (public offer of sale).
Spotify hasn't officially announced that it will go public in 2017, but there has been a lot of speculation, including a funding round with incentives tied to a listing. The source said Spotify went cold on SoundCloud because it "doesn't need an additional headache in a possible IPO year."
SoundCloud, which allows users to upload, promote and share audio recordings, would have allowed Spotify to add user-created content to its own music catalog, however this would have caused Spotify to have to deal with potential licensing issuesThis is something you do not want at all, as this could complicate the IPO you have planned for this year.
SoundCloud has more than 175 million total listeners per month, while Spotify has 40 million paying subscribers. Apple Music, Spotify's main competitor, has seen continued subscriber growth and recently announced that it has 20 million subscribers.
