Deezer raises €100m in wake of pulled IPO

Neither Access nor Orange have disclosed their contribution to the round. The former, an investment holding and the current owner of Warner Music Group, holds a 36.72% stake in Deezer. Orange, a telecoms corporate that has been working in partnership with Deezer in France since 2010, owns a 14.56% interest.

The round, the third seen by Deezer since inception in 2007, comes as the music streaming service boosts its music catalogue to include around 40 million songs, up from 35 million last year; the figure reportedly places Deezer ahead of its US and Swedish counterparts Rhapsody and Spotify, with a respective 34 million and 30 million.

According to the company, the past few months have brought an overhaul to its iOS and Android apps, as well as partnerships with BMW, among others. The number of radio shows, audiobooks and podcasts it offers to streamers has also been doubled.

The funding round marks Deezer's return to private financing a mere three months after calling off its highly publicised listing on the Paris stock exchange.

The IPO plans first emerged in late September 2015; at the time, the business was thought by press reports to be aiming for a €1bn market cap, effectively pushing it into unicorn status, alongside French car-sharing platform BlaBlaCar.

Three weeks later, Deezer unveiled a listing date – 30 October 2015 – and a €36.40-49.24 share price range; the potential flotation could have resulted in €290-405m in proceeds for the business.

However, two days before the IPO date, Deezer announced that "market conditions" had convinced it to postpone the listing. In a statement, the company explained it would "review its fundraising options in the future" and added it remained "well funded and well positioned".

Previous funding
According to unquote" data, Deezer first came under private equity ownership in October 2009, two years after being founded. The streaming service raised €6.5m from Idinvest, CM-CIC and existing investor Dotcorp Asset Management to finance global expansion, which kicked off when offices were set up in the UK.

A €100m second round took place in October 2012. The funding, led by Access Industries' €70m contribution, also featured capital from Idinvest, CM-CIC, Orange and Dotcorp.

Company
Created in 2007, Deezer is an on-demand music streaming service. Its catalogue, featuring around 40 million tracks and 40,000 podcasts, is browsed by 6.3 million users worldwide – 1.5 million of whom are direct subscribers, while the remaining 4.8 million access the content via one of the telecoms operators with which Deezer is partnered.

With headquarters in Paris, the company operates out of offices in 11 additional European countries, as well as the US, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Thailand and Singapore. Its activities worldwide generated €142m in turnover in 2014, a 53% uptick on the 2013 figure.

People
Access Industries – Guillaume d'Hauteville (vice-chair).
Orange – Pierre Louette (deputy CEO).
Deezer – Hans-Holger Albrecht (CEO).

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Expansion
• Technology
• France
• France
• Venture