In a surprising turn of events, social media giant Twitter has invested $70 million into the struggling music platform SoundCloud. Speaking about the recent move, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey explained the motivation behind the investment:
Earlier this year we made an investment in SoundCloud through Twitter Ventures to help support some of our efforts with creators. They’ve been great partners of ours over the years and their community-supported approach mirrors ours in many ways.
SoundCloud has made headlines over the last few years that showcased the company’s problems related to growing dissatisfaction among users regarding copyrights takedowns, as well as concern from investors over the company’s growth. The investment from Twitter come as part of a larger fundraising campaign for SoundCloud that’s expected to bring in a total of $100 million while raising their valuation to $700 million.
Whether or not Twitter’s involvement actually makes a difference in how SoundCloud handles copyright takedowns remains to be seen, but hopefully this will be a step in the right direction for the struggling company.