Mignot: Index passed on Spotify multiple times due to music industry bias
Martin Mignot · Index Ventures Partner, Martin Mignot: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index’s Decacorn Factory · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Aug 11, 2025 · at 18:06
Martin Mignot is a Partner at Index Ventures. He explains how an earlier investment in Last.fm created negative bias about music label dynamics, leading Index to pass on Daniel Ek and Spotify.
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“The example we always use at Index is, is Spotify. And to your point, it wasn't because of a bad investment, it was because of a mediocre investment, which is different. You know, we had just invested in Last.fm, which was a, you know, a totally reasonable outcome, but it was, we saw how the sausage gets made in that industry, and the power of the labels, and we're like, gosh, this is impossible to make money, and we really love Daniel, and we saw that the product was phenomenal, and there was some early traction, but we had this bias of, oh, the music industry is so hard, you know, it's never gonna happen. And that's why we passed multiple times, and when we wanted to come back, it was too late.”
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