Spotify takes it up a notch: To fuel the war against Apple, music streaming service Spotify has raised $1B in convertible debt from TPG, Dragoneer, and clients of Goldman Sachs, the WSJ reported yesterday. It’s a gutsy move: By raising debt rather than equity, Spotify doesn’t have to worry about poor signaling from a down round (the company was last valued at $8.5B in June 2015), but if the company doesn’t perform well, some aggressive deal terms could cost it a lot of money. I repeat: “VC investing is down.” Amit Mukherjee of NEA digs into the data to find that VC investments declined 32% from Q3 to Q4 of 2015, and 39 down rounds have occurred since the beginning of Q4 2015 (compared to the 19 that occurred in the first 3 quarters of 2015). Investor sentiment is that things will get worse before they get better, Mukherjee says, but it’s important to remember that good companies are still raising at fair prices – so while this correction may feel painful, markets are still working. At least there’s hope for IPOs in Q2: According to a new report by IPO research firm Renaissance Capital, the U.S. IPO market hit the lowest levels in Q1 since the financial crisis of late 2008. But there’s a silver lining: Renaissance’s Kathleen Smith tells TechCrunch that she’s expecting some IPO icebreakers to inject new life into the market in the second quarter. Introducing new ways to access CrunchBase Data Uncover new opportunities, discover industry trends, and build powerful apps using the Daily Excel Export or API. | 