Spotify 'worth a billion dollars'

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More signs of a new dotcom boom emerged today after reports said music streaming website Spotify had secured a funding deal that valued it at one billion US dollars (£616 million).

The Anglo-Swedish service is understood to be seeking around 100 million US dollars (£61 million) from Facebook investor Digital Sky Technologies (DST) and Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins for a combined 10% stake.

The price tag is the latest in a flurry of valuations for internet companies, which has sparked comparisons to the dotcom bubble a decade ago.

Social networking site Facebook was valued at 50 billion US dollars (£30 billion) last month, while Twitter was reported to be worth up to 10 billion US dollars (£6 billion). The advertising-funded website, which offers 10 million tracks from a range of major and independent record labels free of charge, is said to be loss-making but is about to launch in the US.