Spotify had spent €117 million – around $123 million USD – for acquiring Findaway, an audiobook platform that has a copious amount of titles from major publishers and also an online system that pairs authors with engineers to create their own audiobooks. Spotify has been betting big on audiobooks even though it had started off as a music streaming service provider. It had also been allocating a lot of resources for podcasts as well. The Sweden-based company acquired Findaway in November, but did not mention how much they spent to make it happen, until now.

With the Finaway acquisition, Spotify is also hoping for the emergence of a new class of content creators who will be creating their own audiobooks while also monetizing the same as well. The company had earlier acquired Anchor back in 2019 which too has a lot to do with DIY stuff. Interestingly, as The Verge pointed out, the co-founder of Anchor, Nir Zicherman is the man in charge of Spotify’s audiobook business.

“We believe that audiobooks, in their many different forms, will be a massive opportunity,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told investors at a presentation last month. “And just as we’ve done in podcasting, expect us to play to win.”

Ek also said their service is going to be different than what Amazon’s Audible has to offer. While the audiobook service will be integrated within Spotify instead of giving it a different identity similar to what Amazon has done with Audible, the content and ad business chief, Dawn Ostroff stated there is going to be an ad-supported tier as well. However, what remains unknown at the moment is whether there is going to be a premium tier that will provide unlimited access to audiobooks and podcasts.

Spotify meanwhile also revealed what several of its recent acquisitions have cost them. For instance, the Podsights and Chartable went into the Spotify fold for around $94 million USD while Sonantic cost them $96 million USD.

The post Spotify’s Purchase of Findaway cost them 3 million first appeared on Good e-Reader.