Spotify Raises $526 Million For Showdown With Apple

Spotify just raised a cool $115 million for its upcoming war with Apple for the future of streaming music. The money comes from TeliaSonera, a Swedish telephone company with a large market share in Scandinavia. TeliaSonera purchased a 1.4% share in Spotify with the $115 million, and the company says it will collaborate with Spotify on media distribution, customer insights, advertising, and analytics projects among other things.

The companies have had close ties for quite some time; Spotify chairman Martin Lorentzon has been on TeliaSonera’s board since 2013, and both firms have had formal cooperation agreements signed since 2009. Spotify was founded in Sweden and maintains offices there; both it and TeliaSonera are major players in the country’s tech community.

TeliaSonera’s purchase is part of a larger $526 million fundraising round Spotify is conducting. A host of other investors are also participating in the round, and Spotify commissioned Goldman Sachs to raise the new funding. Apple has been explicit in its goals to become the dominant player in the world of streaming audio, and is expected to use seamless iPhone integration as a weapon to generate market share. Earlier today, Spotify revealed its latest user figures: 20 million paying subscribers out of 75 million active users.