Shazam is a London-based company that began as a music-discovery service and has repositioned itself as a media engagement business, expanding into TV show and ad tagging and other content recognition. Founded in 2002, it originally charged for service on 2G phones, later monetizing via affiliate music sales, added a streaming offering in 2012, and was integrated into Apple’s Siri in iOS 8. The app can now identify music as well as print ads, QR codes, packaged goods and barcodes, and the company says it wants to "increase the universe of what is Shazamable." Shazam reports about 100 million monthly active users and says the new financing values the business at more than $1 billion. The company plans to use the proceeds to expand its partnerships program into retail, radio and cinema and to support continued evolution and rapid growth. Management has said the company has a very strong balance sheet and the capacity to pursue acquisitions if they add significant value. Shazam is a music discovery mobile application that recognizes music and other media playing around users. It connects more than 420 million people across 200 countries and supports 33 languages. The service works on major platforms including iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows 7 and is available in major app stores such as iTunes, Amazon, Android Market and the Nokia Store. Founded in 2000 by Chris Barton, Philip Inghelbrecht, Avery Wang and Dhiraj Mukherjee and led by CEO Rich Riley, Shazam is based in London, UK. The company maintains offices in Menlo Park, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seoul and Sydney. According to reports, it recently raised $20M in funding, with the names of the backers undisclosed; previous investors include America Movil, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, DN Capital, Institutional Venture Partners and Acacia Capital Partners. Shazam is a music recognition app and platform that recognizes songs and other audio in seconds and directs users to digital content and commerce partners such as iTunes. The company has updated its design and substantially improved speed on iOS and Android, enabling new use cases like recognizing audio from TV ads. A new iPad app feature, Auto-Tagging, supports automatic recognition and is driving a push into two-screen media where users engage with a tablet or phone while watching TV. Shazam reports a user base of 350 million, monthly active users of over 70 million, and growth of about 2 million new users per week. Sales of digital goods through the app exceed $300 million per year and are doubling annually. The platform handles more than 10 million tags per day and has recorded 9 billion tags to date, and over 250 TV ad campaigns from more than 150 brands have used Shazam for TV. Shazam is a mobile application that identifies recorded music when a user holds their smartphone near a speaker. The app is available on iPhone, Android, Java, BlackBerry, Windows, and Symbian. Since launch it has been used by nearly 150 million people, with weekly installs doubling over the past year and users tagging four million songs per day. The company is expanding beyond music with "Shazam for TV," a program working with partners including MTV, NBCUniversal, and advertisers to let viewers 'Shazam' segments of TV shows and commercials. When a TV segment is recognized, Shazam can surface related information, special deals, and other content to viewers. The company raised a new $32 million funding round to support growth. Shazam lets users identify tracks by capturing short audio samples and matching them to its database. It began in the UK as a mobile call-to-2580 service ten years ago and scaled rapidly after its iPhone app launch in summer 2008, which has been downloaded 10 million times. The service has reached 50 million users and has been adding about 500,000 users per week since February, with a target of 100 million users by the end of next year. Shazam operates a freemium model: 70% of customers take a $5 premium subscription, or users can ID five songs a month for free supported by ads. The company faces competition from services such as Midomi but the article suggests there is room for both. CEO Andrew Fisher is quoted on the growth trajectory.

Total raised

$122M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Jan 2015