Spotify was founded in April 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden, by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, and the service itself officially launched to the public in Europe in 2008.

Quick Scoop: When did Spotify start?

  • Founded (company start): April 23, 2006, in Stockholm, Sweden.
  • Public launch of the service: 2008 in several European countries on an invite-only basis at first.
  • U.S. launch: 2011, which kicked off its big global growth phase.

So if you’re asking “when did Spotify start,” people usually mean one of two moments:

  • the birth of the company in 2006, or
  • the moment users could actually stream music , which was in 2008 in Europe.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.