Spotify Announces High-End Subscription - Daily Crunch

Daily Tech Roundup: February 22, 2021

Significant developments occurred across the tech landscape today, including announcements from Spotify, a new feature from Netflix, and security considerations for Clubhouse. This is a summary of the key events.

Spotify Announces Premium Audio Tier

Spotify is preparing to introduce a new subscription level offering enhanced audio quality. Users will have the option to pay for “CD-quality, lossless audio” streaming.

While specific pricing and launch details remain undisclosed, Spotify HiFi is expected to be a more expensive addition to the existing Spotify Premium service.

Further Spotify Updates

The announcements made at Spotify’s “Stream On” event extended beyond audio quality. These included a new tool to aid artists in audience development, an audio advertising marketplace, continued global expansion efforts, and a podcast collaboration featuring Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen.

A trial run of paid podcast subscriptions was also revealed.

Updates from Tech Giants

Netflix has launched ‘Downloads for You,’ an innovative feature that automatically downloads shows and movies predicted to be of interest to the user.

Users can customize the amount of storage allocated for these automatic downloads after the initial setup.

Reports indicate that Twitter considered acquiring ShareChat, an Indian social media platform, with the intention of creating a global competitor to TikTok. The proposed offer reportedly reached $1.1 billion.

Startup Funding and Venture Capital News

EquityBee secured $20 million in funding to assist startup employees in exercising their stock options. The company aims to educate employees about the value of their options and provide financial resources to facilitate their purchase.

Splice received $55 million in investment to further develop its software, which empowers music creators to save, share, collaborate on, and remix musical pieces.

Security Concerns with Clubhouse

The ease with which Clubhouse can be reverse-engineered and cloned is raising concerns about the platform’s security infrastructure.

The relative simplicity of the process highlights potential vulnerabilities within the application.

Extra Crunch Insights

An analysis questioned the valuation of Stripe in relation to Coinbase, examining the financial performance of both companies.

A discussion featuring Matt Harris of Bain and Isaac Oates of Justworks revisited the Series B funding deal that brought their companies together in 2016.

An article explored the strategies employed by successful enterprise sales teams to overcome objections from key decision-makers.

Other Notable News

NASA released footage documenting Perseverance’s challenging landing on Mars, showcasing the “seven minutes of terror.”

TechCrunch initiated a survey of European venture capital investors and their respective cities.

The Original Content podcast announced its transition to independence, marking the end of its run on TechCrunch.

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