The owners of major streaming service Soundcloud are gearing up for a sale of the platform that could be worth over $1bn.
According to information acquired by Sky News, Singaporean investment fund Temasek Holdings and UK investment company Raine Group have begun talking to other investment banks about a sale of the company.
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In 2017, Soundcloud was reportedly close to collapsing as a business when Raine and Temasek acquired stakes in a majority takeover worth $170m.
The music streaming platform was first launched in 2007 as a place for artists to publish their work to the world.
Despite gaining a large audience and becoming the platform for housing homegrown artists, the platform struggled to monetise its business model as the global music industry rapidly changed.
Last year, Eliah Seton was instated as chief executive and is thought to have accelerated the platform to new heights.
Soundcloud laid off 20% of its workforce last year citing a “challenging economic climate”.
Former CEO SoundCloud CEO Michael Weissman said the cuts would put the platform “on a path to sustained profitability.”
Weissman said the layoff decision was “necessary given the challenging economic climate and financial market headwinds.”
The news follows music streaming leader Spotify announcing its expanded partnership with Google Cloud to strengthen its artificial intelligence (AI) offerings.
The audio streaming giant will be using large language models (LLMs) to identify users’ listening patterns in audiobooks and podcasts so it can make targeted suggestions.
Swedish digital audio giant Spotify was a very early adopter of AI and has offered customers AI-powered suggestions for around a decade.
