User:Laudank/sandbox

Sources with knowledge of the company's next funding round spoke with the media in early December 2014 to reveal that ongoing discussions could raise about US$150 million in new financing, leading to a new valuation that would surpass the billion-dollar mark. Other startups that have crossed such a threshold include Spotify and Uber. At this time, SoundCloud claimed that 175 million unique listeners used the site each month, while about 12 hours worth of audio were being uploaded every minute. The major label issue became prominent again when the new financing information was released, as the lack of monetisation was presented as an issue—SoundCloud had managed to sign an agreement with Warner Music Group as part of the new premier program that allows both Warner Music, which also has a minor stake in the company, and its publishing division to collect royalties for songs they have chosen to monetize on the site; meanwhile, the other labels remained skeptical of the company's business model.

According to the company’s data, in December 2014, the service attracts more than 175 million unique monthly listeners, while content creators upload approximately twelve hours worth of audio every minute. According to further information released in December 2014, the introduction of ads had allowed SoundCloud to share revenue with about 60 other Premier Partners, including independent labels and artists, who are invited to participate and receive special promotion rights. Although SoundCloud did not have paid subscriptions for ad-free streaming, they had planned to launch one in 2015. Concerns over the amount of revenue from the program led Sony Music Entertainment to pull its content from the service entirely in May 2015. In June 2015, SoundCloud announced that it had reached a deal with the Merlin Network, a group representing 20,000 independent record labels, to monetize their content through the premier partner program.

In January and March 2016, SoundCloud reached respective deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. A UMG spokesperson told The New York Times that the deal would give the company an option to require certain content to be restricted to paid subscribers—a statement suggesting that SoundCloud was preparing to launch its subscription streaming service.

On 29 March 2016, SoundCloud launched its subscription music streaming service, SoundCloud Go.

SoundCloud Go
On March 29, 2016, SoundCloud unveiled SoundCloud Go, a subscription-based music streaming service; the service integrates licensed music from major labels into the existing, musician-uploaded content of the service. Co-founder Eric Wahlforss stated that this aspect would help to differentiate SoundCloud Go from other music streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, as it technically provides a larger total library of songs than competing services, with a higher degree of diversity in its content. The Verge found that, excluding existing content uploaded by users, the service's initial library of songs is smaller than those of its closest competitors. When SoundCloud Go was finally released, the monthly price was $10.