Adyen, the Dutch Internet and mobile payment startup, is trumpeting a big client win today: Its single-click payment solution has been selected by social sound platform SoundCloud. But that in itself isn’t really all that newsworthy. The real story, as we understand it, is that SoundCloud users will soon be able to start selling tracks through the platform.
(Update: In a case of one company’s PR saying one thing, and the other something quite different: SoundCloud has finally responded to my enquiry to say that it’s NOT rolling out a feature to let users sell tracks. Adyen is in fact simply replacing its current premium subscription payment solution. Yawn. The original article follows below.)
With a stated mission to “unmute” the Web, SoundCloud enables users to easily record, upload and share original sound on the likes of Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare. The Berlin-headquartered company currently claims “over 20 million” registered users, which include music professionals, book publishers, comedians and journalists, while it’s amassed eight million app downloads. Turning those users into profitability, beyond the premium accounts for producers that it already offers, seems a very logical next step. Especially when you consider that the SoundCloud player is already widely embedded across the Web — in its early days it was sometimes described as the YouTube of audio.
One company’s client win is potentially another’s loss, however. SoundCloud currently integrates with payment startups Flattr and BuySimple — as separate SoundCloud ‘apps’ via the company’s API. With Adyen now onboard, those integrations look a little less relevant.
SoundCloud says it chose Adyen because it needed a payment and fraud management solution that could scale globally, and one that could support multiple currencies. Adyen supports 100 payment methods across Europe, USA, Asia and Latin America. The “cultural fit” of the two companies is also being talked up — they are both European neighbours after all.
Turning on the monetization taps further will no doubt be good news to SoundCloud’s backers. In January of this year we reported on the company’s latest round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers with participation also from GGV Capital. The amount was not disclosed but TechCrunch understood it to be $50 million, giving the company a $200 million pre-money valuation. SoundCloud’s previous investors include Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and Index Ventures.