Spotify says it has 20 million paid subscribers, and another 55 million who use a free version of the streaming music service.

That’s up from the 15 million paid subs and 60 million total active users the company reported in January. A year ago it was at 10 million and 40 million, respectively.

The company has also closed a long-simmering funding round; this one topped out at more than $500 million and values the company at $8.5 billion. Spotify will use the money to try to fend off competitors, including Apple, which announced its upcoming subscription service this week.

Spotify’s newest numbers place it far ahead of any other digital subscription music service. Its closest rival is France’s Deezer, which says it has six million paid subscribers and another 10 million who use it for free. But Spotify is now closing in on other leaders with different models: Pandora’s Internet radio service says it has 79 million monthly users, most of them using a free version; satellite audio service Sirius XM has 27.7 million users.

The new numbers also show that Spotify has been able to grow since November, when Taylor Swift pulled her music from Spotify’s catalog because she didn’t want the service offering her songs for free. That might be a cautionary tale for Apple, Tidal and other music services interested in locking up acts for exclusive windows.

The flip side of Spotify’s user growth is that its losses continue to increase. The company says that in 2014 it lost $197 million, up 289 percent from a $68 million loss in 2013. In the same period, Spotify’s revenue was up 45 percent, to $1.3 billion.