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TWITTER INVESTS $70M IN SOUNDCLOUD

YouTube, Spotify and SoundCloud have also joined a new platform for music royalties...

Twitter has reportedly invested $70m (£49m) in SoundCloud, after the future looked uncertain for the music streaming platform when it posted losses of over £30m in 2014 in February.

Twitter, who originally sought to buy SoundCloud, are said to have agreed an investment that will eventually total around $100m (£70m), according to Recode. The injection of cash will reportedly value the company at $700m (£490m), where it was prior to the company’s 2014 losses.

Speaking about the agreement, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, said, “Earlier this year we made an investment in SoundCloud through Twitter Ventures to help support some of our efforts with creators. They’ve been great partners of ours over the years and their community-supported approach mirrors ours in many ways.”

The news comes at the same time as YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud and other music streaming platforms all joined The Open Music Initiative. The program, from The Berklee College Of Music’s Institute For Creative Entrepreneurship, aims to streamline the payment of online royalties.

Speaking about the The Open Music Initiative, co-founder Panos Panay, said it is meant “to use the brainpower, neutrality and convening ability of our collective academic institutions, along with broad industry collaboration, to create a shared digital architecture for the modern music business.”

Rob McCallum is DJ Mag’s digital news writer. Follow him on Twitter here.