VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Behzad Omrani grew up in Tehran, in a house ringing to the sounds of his father's record collection - mostly the twangs and twirls of American Country & Western.

Irish rocker Bono has defended Spotify from criticism it pays too little to people who create music, saying digital music streaming services are opening up new ways for musicians to reach their public.

Amazon.com Inc launched a $9.99-per-month subscription service on Friday that lets customers read as much as they choose from its library of more than 600,000 digital books.

More than a decade ago, the late Steve Jobs pulled one of his trademark reality distorting maneuvers, browbeating music label executives into selling songs on Apple Inc's then-nascent iTunes digital store for a mere 99 cents apiece.

Santa Monica, US-based music streaming service Beats Music is looking to raise between $60 million and $100 million in a new funding round in a bid to keep up with bigger rival Spotify, as the Beats Electronics spin-off failed to attract the targeted number of subscribers since its January launch.

Rhapsody and Napster will stop using the recommendations of The Echo Nest following its acquisition by rival Spotify earlier this month,

Cupertino, US-based tech giant Apple is mulling on launching its own on-demand music service to compete with music streaming giant Spotify as the number of downloads goes down.

Palo Alto, US-based late-stage investment firm Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) raised $2.23 billion for its eighth growth equity fund from European and Asian private and public pension funds, financial institutions and other investors.

Sydney, Australia-based music streaming firm Spotify snapped up Somerville, US-based music discovery engine The Echo Nest for an undisclosed amount to create an improved music discovery service for its clients.

US-based e-commerce giant Amazon is reportedly in talks with big music companies about plans to offer its own music streaming service under it Prime membership, according to a report by Re/code citing anonymous industry sources familiar with the discussions.

Online music streaming service Spotify is recruiting a U.S. financial reporting specialist, adding to speculation that the Swedish start-up is preparing for a share listing, which one banker said could value the firm at as much as $8 billion.

Tech giants Microsoft and Samsung are in talks to acquire stakes in a France-based online music startup and a video-sharing website, according to a report by French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche.

Chicago-based media firm Tribune has entered an agreement to purchase Gracenote, the California-based music data unit of Japanese conglomerate Sony in a deal valued at $170 million, according to a statement by Tribune.

Spotify, a popular music-streaming service, confirmed its receipt of a USD250 million investment in a recent funding and also said it paid around USD500 million in royalties to artists this year.

Spotify AB has successfully secured about USD 250 million in new financing that values the music-streaming company much higher than USD 4 billion, according to sources. With this in mind, Spotify is now almost shoulder to shoulder with Pandora, which went public in 2011 and is currently valued at USD 5.7 billion.