The multi-billion dollar music streaming company Spotify is primarily owned by its founders, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorenzon.
As of 2021, Daniel Ek holds 16.7% of the common stock and 31.9% of the voting rights.
Martin Lorentzon holds 10.9% of the ordinary shares and 42.9% of the voting rights.
Another key shareholder is Baillie Gifford & Co, a Scottish finance management firm, followed by Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price, and Tencent.
Who is Daniel Ek?
- Daniel Ek is a Swedish entrepreneur and billionaire who co-founded Spotify in 2006 with friend and business partner Martin Lorentzon.
- Ek made $50,000 a month from his bedroom as 18-year-old selling websites and hosting services. After receiving a heavy tax bill from the Swedish government, he decided to study at university.
- Ek dropped out of college after eight weeks to focus on his passion for IT. Eventually, he founded the online advertising company Advertigo and created Spotify with its founder Martin Lorentzon.
Who is Martin Lorentzon?
- Martin Lorenzon is a Swedish entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of the music streaming platform Spotify and digital marketing company Tradedoubler.
- Lorentzon’s first business success came from a company called a Net strategy which he founded in 1999 with Felix Hagnö. Lorentzon met Hagnö at Cell Ventures in Silicon Valley, and together they decided to launch Tradedoubler to capitalize on the emerging Affiliate Marketing industry.
- Lorentzon met Daniel Ek when Tradedoubler acquired his company Advertigo in 2016. The couple was wealthy but dissatisfied, so they founded Spotify to revolutionize the music industry and give their lives purpose. Since his success with Spotify, Lorentzon has been involved in university programs to encourage the next generation to become entrepreneurs.
Spotify is a double-sided marketplace where artists and music fans engage. Spotify has an ad-supported free service and a paid subscription.
Founded in 2008 with the belief that music should be universally accessible, it generated €9.66 billion in 2021.
Of these revenues, 87.5%, or €8.46 billion, came from premium memberships, while over 12.5%, or €1.2 billion, came from ad-supported members.
By 2022, Spotify had 195 million premium members and 273 million ad-supported users.
Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming platform, with over 381 million users in 184 markets worldwide.
Martin Lorentzon and Daniel Ek founded the company in 2008 in response to the closure of the peer-to-peer music service Napster.
Spotify became a success because it was the first company to figure out how to distribute the music legally and compensate the music industry simultaneously.
The platform now offers curated music search services, music stations, audio customization, and private listening.
Recently, he has also ventured into streaming audiobooks, podcasts, comedy, poetry, and short stories.
Spotify Audience Network is the underlying advertising infrastructure that supports its ad-supported user base. The Spotify Audience Network was born as a result of the acquisitions of Anchor and Megaphone. By 2022, Spotify had 273 million ad-supported users.
The Spotify model is an agile scale autonomous approach focusing on cultural communication, accountability, and quality.
The Spotify model was first recognized in 2012 after Henrik Kniberg, and Anders Ivarsson published a white paper detailing how streaming company Spotify approached agility.
Therefore, the Spotify model represents an evolution of agile.