Yahoo Finance Spotify boss to invest €1bn of his own money to create European 'supercompanies'
The chief executive of music streaming business Spotify has announced that he will invest €1bn (£913m) of his wealth into emerging European technology businesses to help them grow into "supercompanies."
Daniel Ek said in a speech at the virtual Slush conference on Thursday that he has become concerned at the number of promising European businesses which have sold out early to larger rivals outside of the continent.
“We all know that one of the greatest challenges is access to capital,” he said, “and that is why I’m sharing today that I will devote €1bn of my personal resources to enable the ecosystem of builders.”
The €1bn pledge, which will be invested over the next 10 years, makes up nearly a third of Mr Ek’s €3.2bn net worth.
Spotify’s chief executive warned that European technology businesses were failing to remain in their home countries to continue growing.
“Time and time again, we see our brilliant entrepreneurs still handing over their companies to the largest bidder before their ideas have ever been fully realised or indeed before they’ve had time to evolve into something even more promising,” he said.
Mr Ek used Demis Hassabis, a co-founder of British artificial intelligence business DeepMind which sold to Google for $500m (£392m) in 2014, as an example of European talent lost to a US corporate giant.
He explained that European companies “tend to be hesitant to take the risks involved for sticking out on our own and embracing the unknown.”
“I get really frustrated when I see European entrepreneurs giving up on their nascent visions by selling up very early,” he added.
Mr Ek has previously invested in European start-ups such as digital healthcare business Kry and student housing website Student.com.
The investment pledge follows an email reportedly sent by Boris Johnson’s top advisor Dominic Cummings to civil servants in the UK in which he encouraged them to help set up an environment to create $1 trillion technology businesses in the country after Brexit.
