He remains the company’s largest shareholder, followed by Tencent – which owns 10% – and Ek. Lorentzon now owns 11.8% of the company, down from 12.2%. Both still own a large percentage in Spotify.įollowing the sales, Ek’s total holding in the company has dropped from 8.8% to 8.3%. The company reportedly had a market valuation of $31.5 billion at close on Thursday. Despite the sizable sales, Ek and Lorentzon clearly don’t want to lose control of the company. This sale of shares will constitute a minimal part of his holding in the company.”Įk and Lorentzon refused to comment on the news. “ Daniel will sell a small share of shares in the next nine months as part of his long-term financial strategy. Speaking with the Swedish publication, Sofie Grant, a Spotify representative, confirmed the sale. He also stated his intention to sell more shares for kr 288 million ($31.7 million). Unlike some other company names, there really isn’t any “meaning” behind it.Lorentzon, meanwhile, sold 317,800 shares between July and September for kr 530 million ($58.3 million). It was completely made up and chosen because it sounded cool and no one else was using it. In the end, the Spotify name is like many startup names. A few minutes later they registered the domain names. As they called names around the room, Martin said a name that Daniel had misinterpreted as “Spotify.”ĭaniel did a google search for the name and found no other hits meaning they fully own it and cannot compete with anyone else. In fact, according to Daniel, he and Martin Lorentzon thought about names together. In his interview with The TelegraphDaniel Ek himself explained that they were “a bit embarrassed to admit” how they came up with the name, so they said it was a conjunction of “spot” and “identify”. Premium: Is it worth upgrading? What about that name?įor a while, the origin story of the Spotify name was a lie. Some big-name artists, including Taylor Swift, have kept their music off the platform - though she eventually joined. It has been repeatedly criticized for the way it pays artists. As of July 2022, that number is up to 182 million.

As of 2015, Spotify had 18 million paying subscribers.

After a few years of growing success in Europe, Spotify secured important record deals to launch in the US in 2011.

Spotify martin lorentzon