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Alessandro Santo shares a post based on an Interview with Fredrik Cassel on Creandum on the connection with Spotify.

We first met Spotify in spring of 2007, and later Creandum Fund II led the firm’s first venture round of funding. Ten years later we’re hearing Creandum partner Fredrik Cassel brag too much about being user 700-something, so we we decided look at that moment where we first signed up. This interview can also be found on our website.

Creandum: So take us back and give us the Creandum/Spotify story. Thinking about timing, Creandum had just raised Fund II where the firm could start focusing on software and web, rather than the old focus on semiconductors and hardware in Fund I.

Fredrik Cassel: Yeah it was a wild start. I can still remember it because I’ve thought about it so many times.

It actually all started at my old school — the KTH school of Technology in Stockholm where I was sourcing new deals. I was watching a webcast of what had happened earlier in the day and there was this guy Andreas [Ehn, the first CTO of Spotify] on stage pitching this new company. He wasn’t saying anything about what they were doing but somehow it seemed very interesting. And I could tell from the audience that they had a lot of respect for the guy and the venture he was building, even though he didn’t say too much.

So I reached out to learn more. He said that the company was called Spotify but he wasn’t the guy I should speak to, I should talk to someone called Daniel. He put me in touch, I gave Daniel a call, and he asked me “Creandum — who are you guys?” and I gave the backdrop and told him what we were up to: changing the fund focus and really swinging for the fences.

Read the full article, 10 years later: Getting to know Spotify before Series A, on LastMileVentures.com.