Music-streaming company Spotify Ltd., fresh from raising overhas hired a new finance chief.
Barry McCarthy, a former chief financial officer at Netflix Inc., has joined the company as its CFO, Spotify said Wednesday.
Mr. McCarthy, who joined Spotify’s board last year, will give up that seat as he takes the operational role.
Spotify has raised more than $1 billion from investors as the company attempts to fend off a growing group of challengers in digital music. Earlier this month, Apple Inc. unveiled its own subscription-based, streaming-music service and a 24-hour global Internet radio station.
Mr. McCarthy was most recently operating chief at Clinkle Corp., a digital-payments startup that has struggled to execute its vision and retain executives. Mr. McCarthy stayed at Clinkle just five months before leaving in March 2014.
Spotify is likely to tap its new CFO’s experience in Web video, a new expansion area for the company. At an event last month in New York, Spotify announced a plan to add videos and podcasts from such partners as ESPN, NBC, Condé Nast and Comedy Central.
Investors in Spotify’s latest funding round valued the nine-year-old company at $8.53 billion, making it one of the most valuable private tech startups. That round was notable for its inclusion of an assortment of global financial investors, including British asset managers Baillie Gifford and Rinkelberg Capital, as well as Canadian hedge funds Senvest Capital and Discovery Capital Management, a person familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
Nordic telecom operator TeliaSonera AB also invested $115 million as part of the financing., saying the two companies would work together on such areas as media distribution, data analytics and advertising.
[“source-wsj.com”]