Term Sheet — Wednesday, March 21

5 Qs WITH A DEALMAKER

Pär-Jörgen Pärson, a general partner at Swedish growth investment firm Northzone, made a really great bet 10 years ago. He led Spotify’s Series A round in 2008.

At first, Pärson was skeptical of the founders’ desire to go after the music industry. “I had already invested in a couple of music-related tech startups that both failed,” he told Term Sheet.

But co-founders Martin Lorentzon and Daniel Ek managed to convince him that they were proposing a new business model. “I had seen so many startups that were just like lambs to the slaughter — labels would get some payments from them and let them die,” Pärson said. “But the labels took [Lorentzon and Ek] seriously because they had a product that was absolutely extraordinary compared to anything in the market at the time.”

So he took a chance on that small Swedish startup, which is now a massive business planning a historic IPO on April 3. Spotify is the first large, high-profile company to pursue a direct listing of its shares. It’s an unusual move with some clear benefits — no banks, no roadshow, no crazy fees, and no lock-up period. (Read more about that here)

In a conversation with Term Sheet, Pärson discusses why Spotify chose its unusual IPO route, his biggest concern about the first day of trading, and whether other tech unicorns will follow suit.

Here’s an excerpt of our conversation. Read the full Q&A here.

TERM SHEET: Why did Spotify decide that a direct listing would be the best route to going public?

PÄRSON: It was thanks to Spotify CFO Barry McCarthy, who has already done two IPOs. He started to question what value an IPO would bring to Spotify and its investors. The team saw a number of issues with the [traditional] IPO process, which were basically based on regulations that were defined in the 1930s. They are just not up to par with what I think would be in the best interest of investors. Spotify really wanted to communicate loud and clear to everyone about how this process actually works up until the day the stock trades. But the IPO rules prevent them from doing that by making sure they communicate entirely through a middleman. The middleman may not even understand the business. So that was one complication.

The other one was that there was neither need nor desire to raise capital. Why pay hundreds of million of dollars in underwriting fees for something you don’t actually need?

So you’re saying that Spotify doesn’t need the capital right now, but do you see it eventually needing to offer new shares to raise money?

PÄRSON: I don’t think so. The Spotify business model is very cash-efficient. The company gets paid through a subscription on Day 1 of the month. They need to pay their content owners several days after the close of the month when we know what the consumption pattern has been, and that’s how they distribute the revenue share. This means they have a negative working capital requirement, which is in contrast to Netflix, for instance. Netflix needs to produce shows months or years ahead of any revenue coming in. So it’s a totally different model from that perspective.

Are you nervous about the volatility that comes with doing a direct listing?

PÄRSON: For all the tech companies that come to market with lots of anticipation and a well-know brand, there’s always a risk that the stock will shoot to the stars and have trouble to match that with their fundamentals. That is probably my biggest worry.

Where do you expect Spotify to invest the heaviest in the coming months?

PÄRSON: They have quite a few markets that they haven’t addressed. They launched in Japan a year ago, and they’re still a small player there, so there are quite a few geographical markets that are still untapped.

I also think that initially, Spotify was launched as a substitute for the recording industry. I think the recording industry represents a relatively-limited market opportunity. Where I think it’s more interesting for the long-haul is for Spotify to become more and more involved in other types of content such as spoken word and a substitute for commercial radio. That’s a $100 billion market. That would give them quite a lot of headway to grow.

Depending on how the first day of trading goes, do you expect other unicorns to follow suit?

PÄRSON: I think it’s highly unlikely that a B2B company can go down this route. It’s just unlikely that a smaller market-cap company would be able to get enough interest in the capital markets. So for huge market cap, household names with cash-efficient models that don’t need to raise external capital, I absolutely think it could be a right fit. But there are very few companies who have all of those characteristics.

Read the full Q&A here.

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VENTURE DEALS

• 17ZUOYE, a China-based K-12 intelligent education platform for teachers, students and parents, raised $250 million in Series E funding. Temasek led the round, and was joined by investors including CITIC Private Equity Funds Management and Shunwei Capital.

• KeepTruckin, a San Francisco-based provider of electronic logbook applications, raised $50 million of Series C funding. Institutional Venture Partners led the round, and was joined by investors including Scale Venture Partners, Index Ventures and Google Ventures.

• CommonBond, a New York City-based online student lender, raised $50 million in Series D funding. Fifth Third Capital Holdings led the round, and was joined by investors including First Republic Bank, Columbia Seligman Investments, Neuberger Berman, August Capital, Nyca Partners, Vikram Pandit, former CEO of Citigroup and Tom Glocer, former CEO of Thomson Reuters.

• Clari, a provider of AI solutions for sales, raised $35 million in funding. Tenaya Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including Thomvest Ventures, Blue Cloud Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital Ventures and Northgate Capital.

• Digital Reasoning, a Franklin, Tenn.-based artificial intelligence company, raised $30 million in funding. BNP Paribas led the round, and was joined by investors including Barclays, Square Capital, Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq, Lemhi Ventures, HCA and the Partnership Fund for New York City.

• Pairwise Plants, an agricultural company, raised $25 million in Series A funding. Deerfield Management and Monsanto Growth Ventures led the round.

• Virsec, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based cybersecurity company, raised $24 million in Series B funding. BlueIO led the round, and was joined by investors including Artiman Ventures, Amity Ventures, Raj Singh, and Boston Seed Capital.

• Blackmore Sensors and Analytics Inc, a Bozeman, Montana-based developer of frequency-modulated continuous wave lidar for the automotive industry, raised $18 million in Series B funding. BMW i Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Toyota AI Ventures, Millennium Technology Value Partners and Next Frontier Capital.

• CareWorx, a Canada-based managed service provider and provider of technology solutions to senior care facilities, raised $17 million in funding. Investors include Kayne Partners.

• AllyO, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of AI recruiting technology, raised $14 million in funding. Bain Capital Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Cervin Ventures, Gradient Ventures and Randstad Innovation Fund.

• CryptoKitties, a blockchain-based game, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures co-led the round. Read more at Coins2Day.

• Rachio, a Denver, Colo.-based smart sprinkler company, raised $10 million in Series B funding. Eastside Partners and Bonaventure Capital led the round, and were joined by investors including Amazon Alexa Fund.

• Averon, a San Francisco-based developer of a mobile identity verification standard, raised $5 million in Series A1 funding. Avalon Ventures and Marc Benioff led the round.

• Eden Health, a New York-based personal health platform, raised $4 million in seed funding. Greycroft Partners led the round, and was joined by investors including PJC, Max Ventures and 645 Ventures.

• CaliberMind, a Boulder, Colo.-based B2B marketing intelligence software, raised $3.2 million in funding. Newark Venture Partners and Buran Venture Capital led the round, and were joined by investors including CEB and Salesforce.

• CoEdition, a New York-based brand site for women sizes 10 and above, raised $4 million in seed funding. New Enterprise Associates led the round, and was joined by investors including General Catalyst, Primary and BBG Ventures.

• Vangst, a Los Angeles-based employment resource for the cannabis industry, raised $2.5 million in seed funding. Lerer Hippeau led the round, and was joined by investors including Casa Verde Capital.

• Disruptive Enterprises, a Durham, N.C.-based health and wellness company, raised funding of an undisclosed amount. Investors include One Better Ventures.

• Home Captain, a New York City-based real estate platform, raised Series A funding of an undisclosed amount. Spring Mountain Capital led the round.

PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS

• Nexcelom Bioscience, a Lawrence, Mass.-based provider of cell counting and analysis products for biomedical research and the biopharma industry, raised funding of an undisclosed amount. Investors include Ampersand Capital Partners.

• The HiGro Group acquired a majority of DRS Imaging Services LLC, a Springfield, N.J.-based provider of business process outsourcing and document technologies services. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• Mainsail Partners made an investment in PestRoutes, a provider of business management software for the pest control industry. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

OTHER DEALS

• 10100 has invested $150 million into real estate startup City Storage Systems (f.k.a. Cloud Kitchens) for a controlling stake. Travis Kalanick will join as the CEO. Read more at Coins2Day.

• Salesforce will buy MuleSoft (NYSE:MULE) in a deal valued at $6.5 billion. Financial terms weren't disclosed, but Salesforce indicated it would pay $44.89 per share for MuleSoft, a price that represents a 36% premium over Tuesday’s closing price. Read more at Coins2Day.

IPOs

• Blackstone and Thomson Reuters Corp are considering an IPO or sale of their stake in Tradeweb Markets LLC, according to Bloomberg.

EXITS

• Google will acquire Lytro, a Mountain View, Calif.-based light field imaging startup, for approximately $40 million, according to TechCrunch. Lytro had raised about $215.8 million in venture funding from investors including Blue Pool Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Qualcomm Ventures, and NEA.

FIRMS + FUNDS

• Eight Roads Ventures Europe, a U.K.-based venture capital and private equity firm, raised $375 million for its third fund.

• Kian Capital, a Charlotte, N.C.-based private equity firm, raised $250 million for its second fund, KMP II, L.P.

• Anterra Capital, a Boston and Amsterdam-based venture capital, raised $200 million for its fund.

• Altitude Life Science Ventures, a Seattle-based venture capital firm, is seeking to raise $125 million for its third fund, according to an SEC filing.

• Alidade Capital, a Bloomfield, Michigan-based private equity firm, raised more than $117 million for its fourth fund, according to an SEC filing.