[raesene4]

I'm not sure I'd agree there's no other facts. links from the article include excerpts from their financial accounts which don't look good (losing 39M on a 17M turnover is not healthy).

And the quote from the auditor is significant, auditors don't put that kind of thing in unless they have to as it annoys their customers to be reminded that there's significant concern over their ability to continue operations.

[pbhjpbhj]

Do they have public accounts? I can't understand what SoundCloud could spend $60M USD on? Apparently they have over 300 employees, what do they do all day? Clearly I don't understand their operation.

[TheOtherHobbes]

According to the 2014 accounts the employees earn a little less than €100,000 each, on average. So there's a huge wage bill.

I have no idea what they do either. Legal compliance - DMCAs, and avoiding DMCAs - seems to be a big problem. But I don't understand why they need 300 people to work on that.

if they raised $77m last year that gives them another year or two of runway. But given the continuing losses the current business model doesn't seem to be working, and the burn rate is too high for long term survival without real income growth.

As a user, I love finding music on SC. But I worry they'll try to make the site yet another pay-to-play streaming service, which will kill most of the interest.

Becoming a sales site seems like a better move. IMO there's a big niche for a Bandcamp-but-better site just waiting to be filled.

[zdkl]

I'd guess interfacing with music labels and copyright holders must be a special kind of tedious. Seems to be a recurring problem of music platforms who don't fit the industry's royalty model

[rgbrenner]

one excerpt of their P&L does not equal "excerpts from their financial accounts" (plural). And again, it's from 2014.

For all we know Soundcloud was profitable last year. Maybe it's not likely.. but the article has no information at all on last year, yet they feel comfortable making this statement.

The auditor statement is standard boilerplate. It applies to every company that is losing money. That's right -- if the company is losing money, they may need to raise money in the future to continue. No kidding.

[raesene4]

there are two excerpts from their financial accounts in there if that makes you any happier (and justifies my use of the plural :) one from the P&L and one from the staffing section

The article is working on what's publicly available (there's a surprise), as they can hardly work on what Soundcloud hasn't released! My guess would be that if Soundcloud had managed to get into profitability that quickly then soundcloud would've got a press release out to say that.

edit - didn't realise they were a UK company. So the full accounts and company filing history are https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06343600/filing-h...

definitely their cash position at the end of 2014 was not of the best...

[kevcampb]

Wait... _BETA_.companieshouse.gov.uk? Company records available for free? A website that is online 24x7 and doesn't close at night?

I've obviously been living under a rock

[raesene4]

yeah it's super useful, nice interface and all the docs are hosted on S3 which is interesting...