Spotify Inc on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Betty Labs, the creator of sports-focused social audio app Locker Room, in an attempt to speed up its move into live audio. The cost of the acquisition, however, remained undisclosed.
The company said that it intended to “evolve and expand” Locker Room during the upcoming months to offer sports, music, cultural programming as well as live discussions with professional athletes, musicians and other personalities.
“Creators and fans have been asking for live formats on Spotify, and we’re excited that soon, we’ll make them available to hundreds of millions of listeners and millions of creators on our platform,” Gustav Söderström, Chief Research & Development Officer at Spotify, said in a statement.
New voice-based platforms have recently gained much popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are excited to join forces with Spotify and continue building the future of audio – we’ll invest more in our product, open the experience to Spotify’s audience, diversify our content offerings, and continue expanding the community we’ve built,” Howard Akumiah, Betty Labs founder and Chief Executive Officer, said in a statement.
The shares of Spotify Technology SA closed higher for the fourth time in the past ten trading sessions in New York on Tuesday. The stock went up 2.02% ($5.10) to $257.69, after touching an intraday high at $261.35, or a price level not seen since March 26th ($263.92).
The shares of Spotify Technology have retreated 18.11% so far this year, following a 110.40% gain in 2020.