Twitter may make another run at music, considering deal to buy Soundcloud

By Christian Brazil Bautista May 19, 2014

twitter acquires zipdial bid expand presence emerging markets timeline — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Twitter, fresh from killing off its own music app, may renew its pursuit of a viable audio streaming service as it looks into buying Soundcloud. The company, which launched and then discontinued its own stand-alone music app within the span of a year, may recover by purchasing the popular music sharing service.

According to Recode, a deal is far from certain. However, if it does happen, it may be Twitter’s biggest acquisition yet. Last January, Souncloud raised a new round of funding from venture capital firm Institutional Venture Partners and media company Chernin Group. The start-up raised $60 million in financing and was valued at around $700 million. Twitter’s biggest acquisition to date is ad inventory company MoPub, which it purchased ahead of its IPO last November.

SoundCloud, a Berlin-based company, is already a popular service for sharing music, and may be worth its steep price tag. The service calls itself the “YouTube for audio” and houses tracks from independent musicians and established acts. Last October, the company announced that it has 250 million users.

A deal seems beneficial to both companies since a lot of people already use its services in tandem. However, in spite of the obvious benefits, Twitter and SoundCloud failed at a previous attempt at a collaboration. Twitter tried include SoundCloud into its Twitter Music service, unsuccessfully. The collaboration fizzled after music labels complained that SoundCloud didn’t have licenses for some copyrighted material.

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Christian Brazil Bautista

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Christian Brazil Bautista is an experienced journalist who has been writing about technology and music for the past decade…

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