Spotify Reportedly Files For Direct Listing

Morning Report: Axios reports that Spotify filed its IPO docs confidentially “with the SEC at the end of December.”

Spotify’s direct listing seems like a go today, with Axios reporting that the firm filed its IPO paper with the pertinent agency late last month and that the music giant is still “pursuing a direct listing instead of a traditional float.”

Follow Crunchbase News on Twitter & Facebook

Why the company would pursue a direct listing instead of a normal IPO that would raise fresh cash for its business isn’t completely clear, though the method may allow the firm to move more quickly, potentially curtailing some of the rising cost of its recent debt raise.

Spotify could be shaping up to be the first critical IPO of 2018. Here’s to hoping we get to see the numbers soon. Early IPOs can go some way to setting the stage for a year’s IPO market. In 2017, for example, AppDynamics nearly got public before it was snapped up for billions. That didn’t hurt demand for enterprise IPOs, and may have given Snap’s then-exciting offer some positive winds.

Regardless, every year needs someone to jump into the pool first, even if they demand on doing it their own way.

(For more on Spotify, we’ve hit on the topic a time or two.)

From The Crunchbase Daily:

Didi snaps up Brazil’s 99

• China’s Didi Chuxing is reportedly buying a majority stake in Brazilian ride-hailing app 99, in a deal that values the company at $1 billion. Didi previously led a $100 million investment in Sao Paulo-based 99 a year ago.

Apple buys app toolmaker Buddybuild

• Apple has acquired Buddybuild, a Vancouver-based provider of app development tools, for an undisclosed sum. The three-year-old startup previously raised about $9 million in venture funding.
  Uber’s value up for debate

What’s Uber worth?

• There’s a bit of disagreement. SoftBank’s huge purchase of shareholder stakes at a big discount to the ride-hailing company’s last private fundraising valuation offers support for the notion that Uber may not be worth as much as we thought, Crunchbase News reports.