
Soundcloud confirms new $70M credit line after failing to close $100M round - whatok
https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/23/soundcloud-confirms-new-70m-credit-line-after-failing-to-close-100m-round/
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charlesdm
"We are pleased to have secured a flexible $70 million credit line from Ares
Capital, Kreos Capital and Davidson Technology that is ideally structured for
a company with our strong credit rating and in our stage of growth"..

I don't know how someone defines a strong credit rating, but I wouldn't
exactly call Soundcloud a stellar company to lend money to. Unprofitable,
anyone?

~~~
otterley
Credit is the funding of last resort when you can't get equity investors. If
Soundcloud goes bankrupt, creditors go to the head of the line to get any
leftover assets at liquidation time. Equity holders are last in line, and will
almost certainly get nothing.

~~~
rahimnathwani
Credit isn't always the last resort. Many management teams would love to
borrow money at even 15% instead of giving up equity with a 2x liquidation
preferences or IRR-based ratchet.

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al_chemist
> The company has secured a $70 million round of debt (...) which it will use
> to build out more technology, to hire more people, and to build “a
> financially sustainable platform.”

Sounds like a bankrupt drunk getting short term loan to drink more and make
themselves profitable some magical way.

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tqkxzugoaupvwqr
I use Soundcloud often in my browser (Safari on macOS). For some reason, songs
stop occasionally for a short period of time and then continue. I haven’t
found the reason. It feels like buffering. It happens even when Soundcloud is
the active and only tab in the browser, so it probably is not not the browser
throttling JavaScript.

And the website requires ungodly amounts of CPU. When I’m on battery I open
iTunes and listen to locally stored music because the Soundcloud website
drains my laptop battery.

I don’t understand how they cannot notice these problems. They take in
millions and millions of Euro while the streaming is intermittent and the
website drains the battery. What are they working on that this can wait?

While we are at it: How about an official Soundcloud app for macOS so I can
use the keyboard’s media keys?

I tried Soundcloud Go (it was free the first month). I canceled it after the
first two weeks because I did not see any benefit to how I use Soundcloud.

~~~
shepardrtc
I use the SoundCloud app on my iPhone and its perfect. No buffering issues
whatsoever, even when the internet is spotty.

~~~
redcalx
Huh. On my android phone it's practically unusable. Seems like it's a very
large app and thus I think it's causing the phone to run out of RAM (or get
very close to).

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creaghpatr
I pay for Soundcloud so I can cache the mixes I follow. If anyone from
Soundcloud is following this thread, it's all about the mixes and the
caching!!!

They are too far behind Spotify for individual tracks, maybe they could get
some exclusive podcasts or something but please for the love of God don't take
away the mixes or the caching it's such a huge value add in my life.

~~~
draw_down
What does "caching" mean here?

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Matsta
He means you can save them for offline playback. A 2-hour mix is around 100mb
for me. If you're listening to music every day, then it adds up pretty fast.

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powera
"This new funding will enable SoundCloud to strategically grow our technology
and personnel resources to fuel our expected 2.5 times year-over-year growth
in 2017" \- they can't really expect to grow that quickly at this point, can
they?

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redcalx
I agree. Not unless growth in the last 12 months was similar and still rising
(ie. the growth rate was rising) or the growth rate is high than 2.5x. Yeh,
it's bonkers.

