Streaming Mobile App Developers at Deezer Raise $110 Million

Mention the term “streaming apps” to a custom mobile app development company, and chances are they’ll reply with one of three names: “Spotify,” “Pandora,” or “Apple Music.”

Well, the venture capital sources behind Paris-based music streaming app Deezer seem to believe that there’s a fourth name that should come to mind — and they’ve put their money where their mouths are this year with a mammoth $110 million investment. Amid public concern from iPhone app developers that the company would be shutting its doors — or at least shuttering down for a tough fight — the investment announcement comes as a surprise following the company’s move to pull their IPO from the French stock exchange.

Deezer CEO Hans-Holger Albrecht, meanwhile, seems relatively unfazed by their stock market setback. In a statement to VentureBeat, Albrecht said: “We didn’t see the valuation we wanted going through. Weak markets and uncertainty is never a good combination.”

Unlike Pandora (who’s stock has also been suffering from the launch of Apple Music), Deezer has some unique consumer-facing value propositions that could actually make it possible for the mobile app startup to gain traction in the rapidly growing music streaming ecosystem. For starters, partnerships with Orange (a major French ISP), BMW, and others.

Deezer may be less visible in the US, but mobile app development strategists at the startup seem confident that they’ll be able to hold their position even as music streaming big-hitter Spotify continues to gobble up a larger and larger share of the US market.

Currently, only subscribers to relatively obscure cell carrier Cricket Wireless have partnership exposure to the mobile app. For the rest of us on this side of the pond, it could be a year or more before Deezer becomes a household name. But with substantial investments flowing in even after a major stock market flop, mobile app developers can rest assured that they won’t be going anywhere soon.