DST Is Going To Pour $100 Million Into Spotify

Russian investment firm DST, famous for its big stakes in Facebook, Zynga and Groupon, is about to lead a financing round of $100 million or more into Spotify, the very popular European music streaming app, TechCrunch says.

This is smart. Spotify has a proven revenue model and it's only going to get better. What it needs to come into its own is scale, ie being in the US as well as Europe. But to do that they need to entice record labels with big upfront cash payments. We suggested an IPO, old-school style, as a way to raise the cash, but going with the deep-pocketed and audacious Russian fund is an option as well.

For DST the deal makes sense as well. They like to invest in companies that are already big and have a big business already, but can yet get much, much bigger. Spotify fits the bill perfectly. And the company is still led by its founder CEO.

Spotify's current investors include VC firm Founders Fund, which is also an investor in Facebook, and Facebook's founding president Sean Parker sits on Spotify's board, so it's not hard to imagine where the connection comes from.

Don't Miss: Sean Parker Has A Deadly Allergy To Nuts. His First Night In Davos, He Was Served... Nuts →

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DST Is Going To Pour $100 Million Into Spotify

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Sequoia And DCM Pour $20 Million Into Chinese Gilt

DCM and Sequoia Capital invested $20 million in Vipshop, a private sales company operating in China, the firms announced this morning.

Vipshop works on the familiar Gilt/Vente-Privee model, but for more mainstream brands. China doesn't have a huge market for high-end designer fashion yet. Instead, Vipshop offers brands like Nike and Adidas to China's massive new middle class. Ultimately, Vipshop hopes to use its own brand to begin introducing Chinese consumers to higher end labels.

More broadly, VCs like DCM and Sequoia are extremely bullish on Chinese ecommerce. The growth of the Chinese middle class has happened extremely quickly, and brick-and-mortar outlets haven't been able to keep up. Outside the centers of the countries biggest cities, there generally aren't physical stores that can offer the products Chinese want.

The $20 million round is actually a series A, but Vipshop is already fairly large, with around 700 employees. The money will go toward scaling up the companies infrastructure and making a big push in marketing and user acquisition.

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See Also:

• THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Hey China, You're Not Going To Be Able To Police A Billion Phones
• Gilt-For-Indian-Fashion Site Exclusively.in Raises Venture Cash
• Mark Zuckerberg's Brutal Prank On Sequoia

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