A small startup worth $13 million just snapped up one of Spotify's longest tenured executives

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Scottgries

Scott Gries

Former Spotify Executive Ken Parks

Ken Parks, Spotify's chief content officer and one of the company's longest-serving executives, is leaving the company in October.

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Parks is headed to another startup - streaming television service, Pluto TV, where he'll be their executive chairman.

Parks joined Spotify in 2007, and was the company's first US employee.

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The New York Times reported Parks will stay on part-time with the company, however, as an advisor to current CEO Daniel Elk.

"I believe Pluto TV has an enormous opportunity to define the future of television and online video," Parks said in a statement issued by the company. "The timing is perfect for Pluto TV to reach massive global scale and become one of the premier consumer video platforms in the world."

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Parks was formerly an adviser and investor in Pluto TV.

Pluto TV was launched in 2013 and has a lot of upside. The company raised $13 million in 2014, with a primary focus on the consumer shift from traditional cable to streaming television.

The company curates videos from consumers' favorite sources on the web, then re-organizes them into more general categories like music, entertainment, sports, and comedy. Consumers can build a library of programming and watch what they want, giving them a unique advantage over other services.

In early July, the company reached a deal with Hulu that would allow users to stream new and old Hulu content from a variety of networks, including ABC, NBC, and Fox.

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