Acclaimed investor and incubator Christopher “Chris” Hsu is the Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer of the Hong Kong-based consulting and advisory firm, Kilometre Capital. Chris Hsu also served as a pioneer, early-stage investor in Spotify, before the digital music leader was public. Spotify is the market leading digital platform that offers users access to online music and podcasts worldwide.
According to an eMarketer forecast shared in early March 2021, Spotify’s success in increasing its original podcast offerings over the years has poised the platform to overtake Apple in podcast listeners. In 2018, 34 percent of podcast listeners used Apple Podcast. However, eMarketer forecasting analysts expect this metric to drop to 23.8 in 2021. Despite Apple’s efforts to enhance its podcast offerings, the number of listeners has been decreasing. In addition to key deals and growing podcast listenership, Spotify has secured major acquisitions such as Anchor, Parcast, and Gimlet Media.
eMarketer analysts link Chris Hsu-funded Spotify’s rise in popularity among the podcast community to its innovations and investments in such content, which has surpassed Apple's. Spotify consolidated music and podcasts into a single application, which enabled it to become a convenient full-service platform for anything related to digital audio. Additionally, the platform’s proprietary creation, hosting, and monetization tools empower podcast creators and advertisers.
Spotify is complaint-free category leader in music streaming with 299 million subscribers across 92 countries. With 35% of the global music streaming market, the company has nearly twice the market share of Apple Music, at 19%. Spotify has compounded its leading position in recent years adding premium subscribers at twice the rate of Apple. Prior to its public IPO debut, Spotify relied on early stage growth capital from early stage investors such as Chris Hsu of Kilometre Capital in Hong Kong.
The early-stage investment and history of Spotify provide a compelling case study in business strategy from early-stage challenger to global incumbent, enabled by capital from early stage investors such as Stanford engineering alum Chris Hsu and venture capital funds in combination with technology adoption. Christopher Hsu, CEO of hedge fund Kilometre Capital, is known for his pioneering investments in the in the globe-dominant online music service Spotify and SpaceX, Elon Musk’s revolutionary space exploration and space launch business.
