THE NEWS WRAP: Spotify closes $US526 million funding round to fend off Apple Music

Spotify has closed a $US526 million funding round in a bid to fend off Apple’s new streaming service, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The latest capital injection values the startup at more than $US8 billion and will see the company invest in new content.

The round was led by Baillie Gifford, Landsdowne Partners, Rinkelberg Capital, Senvest Capital and Discovery Capital Management.

Apple’s intention to launch a music streaming service was formally announced on the first day of its Worldwide Developers’ Conference, and will launch on June 30.

Twitter allowing users to share their block lists

Twitter users are now able to share a list of accounts they have blocked on Twitter as part of its strategy to tackle online abuse.

User safety engineer Xiaoyun Zhang said in a blog post the new feature will make it easier and faster to block multiple accounts.

“You can now export and share your block lists with people in your community facing similar issues or import another user’s list into your own account and block multiple accounts all at once, instead of blocking them individually,” she said.

“We also hope these advanced blocking tools will prove useful to the developer community to further improve users’ experience.”

Big data startup Pachyderm closes $US2 million seed round

Big data storage and analytics startup Pachyderm has snapped up $US2 million in funding, according to TechCrunch.

The capital injection, which was the company’s seed round, was led by Data Collective, Foundation Capital, Blumberg Capital, Susa Ventures, Crunchfund, Caffeinated Capital, Soma Capital and Ace & Company.

A number of angel investors also participated in the round, which will be used to hire more engineers and add new product features.

Overnight

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 236.36 points, rising 1.33% to 18,000.40. The Aussie dollar is trading at around 77.4 US cents.

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