Shazam raises $30 million, crosses $1B valuation

Steven Loeb · January 21, 2015 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/3b8a

The music and TV identification app has now reached over 100M monthly active users

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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