{"id":183,"date":"2018-05-26T14:02:46","date_gmt":"2018-05-26T14:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/?p=183"},"modified":"2024-05-15T14:45:47","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T14:45:47","slug":"how-european-vc-backed-a-tech-titan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/how-european-vc-backed-a-tech-titan\/","title":{"rendered":"Invest Europe – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger: How European VC backed a tech titan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have a read of Nenad Marovac recent guest blog for Invest Europe, reflecting on the Spotify IPO and how European VC backed a tech titan.<\/h2>\n

Excerpt below, with original article available at\u00a0Invest Europe<\/a><\/em><\/h5>\n
<\/h5>\n

Company executives didn\u2019t ring the opening bell. On the trading floor, they shunned the usual interviews. But despite the lack of fanfare, this highly-anticipated flotation, which valued the company at an unprecedented $26 billion, was a milestone for European venture capital.<\/em><\/h3>\n

A 23-year old Daniel Ek established Spotify in 2006 with co-founder Martin Lorentzon, a fellow Swedish serial entrepreneur who had previously bought Ek\u2019s adtech company, Advertigo. Spotify\u2019s entry into the music industry came at a time when digital piracy was rife and traditional labels were struggling to maintain sales. By creating a platform for streaming, it was able to reach consumers and monetise music in a fresh way. But they didn\u2019t do it alone. Over the company\u2019s 12-year history, it has benefited from funding and expertise from European VCs \u2013 and Invest Europe members \u2013 including Swedish firms Northzone and Creandum, Wellington Partners in Germany and Switzerland\u2019s Lakestar. <\/em><\/h3>\n

Northzone\u2019s General Partner, P\u00e4r-J\u00f6rgen P\u00e4rson knew something special was going on at Spotify\u2019s Stockholm office in 2007 because of the buzz their slick new app was creating. High-profile names following the company\u2019s progress included Sean Parker, the Napster founder who went on to become Facebook\u2019s first president. In a Fortune magazine interview shortly before the listing, P\u00e4rson explained why he was initially drawn to Spotify. \u201cThey had a level of ambition that I hadn\u2019t seen before in Sweden and were very aware of what they were building,\u201d he said. \u201cThey weren’t\u00a0settling for the good enough; they were going for the best.\u201d On Creandum\u2019s website, General Partner Fredrik Cassel reflects on why he was attracted to Spotify around the same time: \u201cThe pitch already from the start was, \u2018This needs to be better than piracy\u2019, and of course anyone who tried it knew that it was. It was just better.\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have a read of Nenad Marovac recent guest blog for Invest Europe, reflecting on the Spotify IPO and how European VC backed a tech titan. Excerpt below, with original article available at\u00a0Invest Europe Company executives didn\u2019t ring the opening bell. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188,"href":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dncapital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}