Only a small handful of VCs have the courage to invest in music startups. Sure, plenty of exciting companies get funding: SoundCloud, Spotify, Moontoast, Rdio, Pandora Media, Shazam, BandPage. But where is the Google of the space? No one knows.

Usually, people with a strong creative streak get steered into professions like fine arts or fiction writing. But judging from the IPO filings I’ve been reading over the past few months, career advisors should consider a new job category: accounting. From novel income recognition metrics to the introduction of new asset classes for durable and [...]

The uncertainties of the European debt crisis continue to pummel stocks worldwide, including venture back IPOs. Of the 29 venture-backed startups that went public in the United States since May, 16 are below their IPO prices and 13 above. Not a sparkling record, especially considering that five of the “above water” offerings were launched in [...]

Pandora Media (NYSE: P) saw its shares drop to below $10 on Monday—its lowest point since going IPO at $20 a share on June 15. While Pandora’s stock slipped (likely in response to the launch of the iHeartRadio app) Pandora Chief Strategy Officer and founder Tim Westergren was addressing the industry at the SF MusicTech [...]

Mobile is finally coming into its own. Mobile startups are reaching scale, with revenue of sometimes $100 million or more. Facebook and Zynga, once tethered to the wired Internet, are seeing massive mobile traffic. And Internet radio service Pandora Media now gets more users from mobile devices than desktop computers, a reversal of the past [...]

(Reuters) – It had all the signs of another dotcom bubble: A startup without a convincing business plan or any foreseeable chance of turning a profit saw its shares soar in the first hours after its stock market debut. The difference this time — one that cost some investors money but provided a measure of [...]

In a sign of continued strength for late-stage, VC-backed tech and Internet companies, Pandora Media boosted the number of shares it is offering along with their price.

Today, Pandora said in an amended filing it will now sell14.68 million shares at $10 to $12 each. This is up from the 13.68 million shares at $7 to $9 each that Pandora previously planned to offer. At $11 share, the mid-point of the IPO price range, Pandora could raise $161.5 million.

Pandora is expected to price its IPO on June 15 and trade the next day, a source says.

The secondary markets for private company stock may seem like the Wild West, with unstructured valuations and less than ideal information disclosure. Yet several securities laws apply to transactions now taking place, and the onus falls on companies to follow rules meant to level the playing field, including making some confidential information about their businesses [...]

It’s still a matter of fun conjecture as to when Facebook, Groupon, Twitter or Zynga will launch their IPOs. But for now, it doesn’t matter. This year is already turning out to be a good one for VC-backed IPOs. As Mark Boslet, senior editor of Venture Capital Journal, reported in the upcoming May issue: The [...]

Investing in a music-related startup sounds cool, doesn’t it? Imagine if you invested in RootMusic, which recently raised a $2.3 million round. You’d get to go to their San Franciso digs and listen to music all day. Just last week, Pandora Media registered to raise $100 million in an IPO. Yesterday, TuneUp added $2 million to [...]