April 30, 2018
Our Guernsey-licensed investment adviser, a joint venture with Manhattan Venture Partners, a US merchant bank focussed exclusively on institutional quality direct secondary transactions in venture-backed private tech companies, will shortly be launching Europe’s first non-private fund investing in globally renowned privately-held tech disrupters such as Airbnb at the scale up and pre-IPO stage. First close is expected to be in June.
Read ArticleApril 11, 2018
Spotify is the latest unicorn to go public. The music streaming service opted for a direct listing, shunning the route of the traditional IPO. Is this going to be a trend? In this episode of Yahoo Finance Presents, Alexis Christoforous speaks with Santosh Rao of Manhattan Venture Partners.
Read ArticleApril 6, 2018
In 2017, Spotify earned about $5bn in revenue through its 71 million paying subscribers, but high costs, which last year included a staggering $1.5bn in music royalties, have kept the company in the red. However, share sales in the private market ahead of the 3 April Nasdaq launch were telling. New York financial services group Manhattan Venture Partners reported that Spotify shares had been changing hands for up to $150 each in the two weeks prior to launch.
Read ArticleApril 4, 2018
Prior to listing, Santosh Rao, the head of research at Manhattan Venture Partners — which has invested in the company in the secondary market — expected Spotify’s strategy to pay off and be an example for others to follow. “If this is a successful listing, I can see Airbnb doing it, Uber doing it,” he told Bloomberg. “But Uber and Airbnb are much bigger scale.”
Read ArticleApril 4, 2018
Afterward, the day went without a glitch, with Spotify achieving a trading volume of 30 million. “It was a safe landing,” said Santosh Rao, the head of research at Manhattan Venture Partners. “People thought this was going to be chaotic, but it was smooth.”
Read ArticleApril 4, 2018
Afterward, the day went without a glitch, with Spotify achieving a trading volume of 30 million. “It was a safe landing,” said Santosh Rao, the head of research at Manhattan Venture Partners. “People thought this was going to be chaotic, but it was smooth.”
Read ArticleApril 3, 2018
On Tuesday, Spotify is going public in a highly unusual debut that sees it ditch the usual fundraising and fanfare. But the company is looking to lure investors in part by comparing itself to a company with which Wall Street is very familiar. “The comparison is good. It shows that even Netflix was underestimated and then they became this giant,” says Santosh Rao, who tracks Spotify as head of research at Manhattan Venture Partners. “It shows that there is power in numbers.”
Read ArticleApril 3, 2018
Santosh Rao, head of research at Manhattan Venture Research, said the direct listing prevents any forced buying or selling and does not include a lock-up period. Going public also won’t change much about the company’s reporting, which has been quite transparent, according to Rao. “This is the way the company has been positioned all along,” Rao said. “Being a European company, they are required to disclose financials every year anyway.”
Read ArticleApril 2, 2018
According to Manhattan Venture Partners (MVP), a New York bank, Spotify shares had been trading on a grey market for up to $150 in the last fortnight – giving it an unofficial $26.5bn valuation. Grey market trading occurs outside of authorized channels and usually happens before an initial public offering.
Read ArticleApril 2, 2018
Manhattan Venture Partners (MVP), a New York bank that specializes in “grey market” trading for large private companies, said Spotify shares had been trading hands for as much as $150 in the last two weeks, a price that values the company at around $26.5bn.
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