Over the last six months rumours have been flying around regarding the future of Soundcloud, beloved streaming platform and a powerful launchpad for aspiring artists everywhere – especially in electronic music. Any modern music fan will know that there’s countless musos in the current scene whose careers wouldn’t have existed without the service.
In July Soundcloud announced their price tag: a handy $1 billion. Since then, there’s been interest from Spotify, Twitter, third party investors and most recently, Google.
The future of Soundcloud remains in flux as information giant Google casts their eyes upon the streaming service, but not for the original price tag.
According to Music Business Worldwide, Google is striking a hard bargain, cutting in half the original $1 billion and offering $500,000 for the Berlin-based streaming service.
The report also revealed that Universal Music Leisure Ltd, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Inc. and WMG are major Soundcloud shareholders, so a buyout would see a windfall for each of these major labels.
Safe to say this would represent an enormous shake up to the music industry, the world of streaming and the everyday lives of artists, emerging and successful alike.
Keep an eye and ear out for further news, because in all likelihood 2017 will be the year Soundcloud acquires new ownership.
