Spotify’s opening number seemed to be music to the market’s ears…at least at first.
The streaming company made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday afternoon at more than $165 a pop, pegging its valuation at roughly $29.5 billion.
Over the course of the day, though, that price slipped to about $149, down about 12 percent from the highs of the day, but still well above the $132 a share reference price.
Spotify’s unconventional choice of a direct listing, instead of a traditional IPO, had investors and experts bracing for a roller-coaster ride on Tuesday.
“I thought we were going to see a lot of spikes up and down and up and down,” said Dan Primack, business reporter at Axios. But “it hasn’t been all over the place.”
This smoother-than-expected listing raises the question of whether more companies will follow in Spotify’s footsteps in the future.
“It’s not the right path for all,” Stacey Cunningham, COO of the New York Stock Exchange, told Cheddar before the stock started trading. “There are some unique factors for [Spotify].
“They don’t need to raise capital, so going through the IPO process isn’t something that was important to them.”
Spotify was much more interested in “providing that liquidity event for their shareholders...to have a currency...to do additional M&A deals going forward,” explained Cunningham.
So what’s in store for Spotify’s future?
Fam Mirza, one of the company’s earlier investors, told Cheddar he wouldn’t sell his shares in the listing, because he has faith in where the company is headed.
“They’re so amazing at entering new markets...They can still scale it, and then they get to those bottom line revenues.”
Mirza also doesn’t consider Apple, even as it gains ground in the space, as a real threat. After all, he pointed out, the tech giant has had plenty of opportunity to overtake it.
“Everybody has an iPhone. So as soon as Apple launched Apple Music...why hasn’t every single person who has an iPhone signed on to Apple Music?”
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/spotifys-unique-relationship-with-wall-street).
Comcast's $38.8 billion winning bid for British satellite broadcaster Sky was a "shocking price" to pay for international expansion, said Rich Greenfield, media and tech analyst at BTIG.
Shares of Pandora surged Monday after the satellite radio company announced an all-stock deal to acquire the streaming service. Sirius made a $480 million investment in the company last year, taking about a 15 percent stake in it. BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield says the deal is probably bittersweet for Pandora which "really failed as a public company."
The blockchain has made its way into a slew of industries. Next at bat ー the sports world. The Los Angeles Dodgers are moving away from traditional promotions and have begun using crypto tokens to give away digital bobbleheads to fans. Ralph Esquibel, VP of information technology for the team, said this is the first giveaway of its kind and could lead to more experiments with cryptocurrencies.
GSTV, which delivers content across thousands of fuel retailers in the U.S., reaches 75 million unique visitors and hopes to reach one in two adults in the next few years. Sean McCaffrey, president and CEO of GSTV, said that the scale of the company is increasing daily.
GSTV recently partner with Cheddar to distribute content through its outlets.
The Canadian cannabis company has seen exponential growth with shares doubling since just mid-August, when Corona-maker Constellation Brands upped its stake with a $4 billion investment. CEO Bruce Linton said interest is now coming from pharma giants, which will rely on companies like Canopy for research, patented technology, and formulas.
Facebook plans to finally unveil its Portal video chat device for the home next week, Cheddar has learned. The device will function similarly to an Amazon Echo Show with social features and come in two screen sizes, according to people familiar the matter. The wide-angle video camera will use artificial intelligence to recognize people in the frame and follow them as they move throughout a room.
Amazon will get a lot more than 3,000 brick-and-mortar stores when it builds out its cashierless Amazon Go chain.
The tech giant announced a slew of new products and software for Alexa-enabled homes, betting that the voice assistant becomes the entryway into the company's ecosystem for many households. Among the new Echo devices: a microwave, a wall clock, and the Echo Auto.
Thursday's IPO, with shares priced at $23 near the high end of its range, implied a valuation of nearly $1.8 billion. By midday, the stock was trading over $37. Julia Hartz, Eventbrite CEO, said the company's relentless focus on the "mid-market" protects it from competition from Ticketmaster or Facebook.
What does crypto have to do with journalism? Civil Media thinks it can be the answer to some of the field's woes, from eroding trust to a collapsing business model. As CEO Matthew Iles explained, the start-up's token sale can help build an infrastructure that will serve as a new economy for newsrooms.
