In 2016, TPG, Dragoneer and Goldman Sachs lent Spotify $1 billion via convertible debt financing, which was supposed to give the lenders the ability to eventually turn their loans into equity.
The deal let Spotify bide its time before an IPO, but not too much time: The longer Spotify took to go public, the better the terms would get for the lenders. News emerged Wednesday that the company had confidentially filed IPO documents in late December.
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Spotify was "forced" into IPO in a way: https://www.recode.net/2018/1/3/16847786/spotify-tpg-tencent...