Shazam, the app that is most famous for allowing users to answer the question, "what's the name of that song that's playing?" has just crossed a major milestone.
The company announced a new $30 million round of funding on Wednesday, but more importantly it also revealed that, with this latest fundraising it has crossed the $1 billion valuation mark. That makes it just the latest company to cross a threshold that seems to be becoming much easier to reach.
Shazam did not identify who the investors were in this round, but Andrew Fisher, Executive Chairman of Shazam, told Bloomberg that the funding came from "a couple of billionaires."
Nor did Shazam go into much detail regarding what it would be using the money for, stating that, "The funding will support Shazam’s continued evolution and rapid growth following a year of user milestones, increased service capabilities and expansion into new market sectors."
“We’re excited to continue to focus on user growth and engagement, building on our strength in music and innovating to increase the universe of what is Shazamable in order to realize the enormous potential of Shazam,” Rich Riley, CEO of Shazam, said in a statement.
Founded in 2002, Shazam started out as a music identifying service, but has since moved beyond that, adding in features to download the song from iTunes, share it across multiple popular social networks, read the lyrics, download ringtones and more. It has also expanded into the television market, allowing users to get specials, offers and more information on what they are watching.
The app can be used in movie theaters, retail stores, and on ads playing over the radio. In 2014, Shazam added new capabilities that allow users to use the camera for print ads, QR codes, packaged goods and barcodes.
Shazam has been downloaded over 500 million times. In the past year it has reached over 100 million monthly mobile active users.
With this latest funding, Shazam has now raised $125 million from investors that include America Movil, Sony Music Entertainment, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Institutional Venture Partners and DN Capital.
The $1 billion valuation club
Shazam is just the latest company to reach that threshold, which has become much easier with inflating valuations.
In 2014 alone, 38 different companies entered the $1 billion club. That is more than the three previous years, when only 22 companies made it combined.
New members include JustFab, Tango, Kabam, Eventbrite, AppDynamics, Delivery Hero, Docusign, Hootsuite, Slack and Snapdeal.
VatorNews has reached out to Shazam to find out more information about its plans for the funding, and we will update this story if we learn more.
(Image source: news.shazam.com)
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Eventbrite is the world’s largest self-service ticketing platform, and enables people all over the world to plan, promote, and sell out any event. The online event registration service has helped organizers process over 130 million tickets in 179 countries, and makes it easy for everyone to discover and share the events with people they know. In this way, Eventbrite brings communities together by encouraging people to connect through live experiences. Eventbrite's investors include DAG Ventures, Sequoia Capital, T. Rowe Price, Tenaya Capital and Tiger Global. Learn more at www.eventbrite.com.
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JustFab (www.JustFab.com) is an online fashion styling service and
lifestyle fashion brand that offers members a fun and engaging personalized
shopping experience. Members of the fashion service are given the celebrity
treatment every month as they receive a customized selection of shoes and
handbags, handpicked by stylists, along with the JustFab basics of denim and
other fashion essentials. VIP members can purchase items for $39.95 and
shipping is always free.
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Description
Kabam is an interactive entertainment company leading the next wave in social gaming, developing and publishing massively multiplayer social games (MMSG’s), including the popular and critically praised title Kingdoms of Camelot and Dragons of Atlantis. Our studios focus on combining the best elements of traditional and social gaming to appeal to a growing audience of players looking for deeper, more engaging social games. The first wave of Kabam’s new games for Facebook and leading media sites have been widely recognized for their depth of play and social interaction.
Kabam started out as Watercooler, whose aim was to make connecting with your friends, family, and other fans of your favorite TV shows or Sports teams more compelling than ever before. By bringing fan communities into the context of your social network, Watercooler enables more engaging sports and TV fan experiences. Fans are able to access Watercooler's FanSection and TVLoop communities no matter where they are on the web: Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, Hi5, MyYahoo, and TVLoop.com. Over 35 million sports and TV fans have joined Watercooler's fan applications making it the largest online fan community.
Company History
Kabam was founded by a team of social networking and community software professionals in Mountain View, CA, in 2006. The company has raised a Series A round of financing from Canaan Partners of Menlo Park, CA.
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Founded in September 2009, Tango is a free mobile video calling service that connects family and friends wherever they are. Tango offers high-quality video calling for iOS and Android devices and works over 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi. More than 10 million people in 190 countries are using Tango to communicate every day, stay connected, and share special moments as they happen. Download the Tango application for free in the App Store and Android Market. Tango is based in Palo Alto, California.
