Spotify going public: Scale ups in Europe

Music streaming service Spotify went public yesterday, with a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. It is the biggest public tech debut since Snapchat’s parent company went public in March 2017.

Spotify is a household name for many around globe. People are likely to think that it is one of the US digital companies that are also part of our daily lives such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Whatsapp. Yet Spotify is different. It began in Sweden, growing internationally before entering the United States market in 2011. Spotify was set up in 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon and now has around 1600 employees.

Spotify shows that it is possible to grow big in Europe. What can we learn from Spotify’s success and Sweden’s thriving start-up scene? What is the reason for the otherwise lack of successful European start-ups?

Read the entire article by visiting professor Kenneth Krushel (New School Media Management) and professor Erik Stam (Utrecht University School of Economics) here and the article on the Unusual Spotify IPO.