Spotify’s prospectus is the most detailed disclosure the company has given about its business.

According to the filing, Spotify, which began its streaming service in Sweden in 2008 and came to the United States three years later, had nearly $5 billion in revenue in 2017, up 38.6 percent from the year before. In 2016, it had grown by 52 percent.

By the end of 2017, Spotify, whose full name is Spotify Technology, had 159 million active users, including 71 million who pay for subscriptions; the rest, using the “freemium” model that has become Spotify’s marketing hallmark, get free access to music but are subjected to advertisements.

As quickly as Spotify has grown, though, so have its losses. Last year, it had a net loss of $1.5 billion, up from about $650 million the year before. Its largest expense, by far, is the cost of licenses from record companies and music publishers.

The prospectus also highlights Spotify’s successes, and its value to the music industry. Through the end of last year, the company had paid more than $10 billion in music royalties since its inception, and its “churn” — a measure of how many paying users cancel each month — has been steadily declining, to 5.5 percent in 2017 from 7.7 percent in 2015.

The largest stakes are owned by its two founders: Daniel Ek, the chief executive and the company’s public face, and Martin Lorentzon, who holds no executive position. In addition to their shares, they also have “beneficiary certificates” granting them extra voting rights. In total, Mr. Ek has 37.3 percent voting power over the company, and Mr. Lorentzon 43.1 percent, according to the prospectus.

The major record labels also own minority stakes in the company, as a result of licensing deals struck over the years. Sony has the largest, with 5.7 percent; the others were not disclosed.

Spotify’s major competitor is Apple, whose co-founder Steve Jobs had long disdained music subscriptions. Apple finally entered the streaming subscription business in 2015 with Apple Music, and recently said that it had 36 million paying users. But according to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, Apple Music has been outpacing Spotify in its growth in paid subscribers in the United States.