2017 is shaping up to be a difficult year for the music streaming platform, SoundCloud. A few months ago, Spotify walked away from SoundCloud acquisition talks. In fact, SoundCloud’s co-founder Alexander Ljung almost confirmed bankruptcy rumors… He even went as far to admit that SoundCloud may go bankrupt should their GO subscription service fail to take off. To add even more bad news. Financial Times reports that the German streaming service just lost two key executives. Marc Strigel, the company’s COO, and finance director Markus Harder have resigned.
The company quickly downplayed the high-profile exits. Without giving specific details, a spokesperson told Financial Times,
The sudden (read: abrupt) exits come as the Berlin-based streamer prepared a new wave of fundraising. Once again downplaying the exits, a spokesperson said,
“SoundCloud is currently fundraising, which is typical of most startups of our size and in our phase of growth. This [exits] is unrelated to our ‘normal course’ fundraising efforts, which are being led by our recently appointed Chief Financial Officer [Holly Lim.]
SoundCloud remains in a position of strength and is confident in its long-term prospects as it continues to be the go-to platform for the creative community.”
Investors, however, painted a clearer picture of what’s going on inside the company. After refusing to provide the company with additional funds, an anonymous German financier told Financial Times that SoundCloud is “begging for money.” He said that the company needs to rethink their $700 million valuation and settle for a lower amount.
