Apple is reportedly days away from acquiring music and audio recognition app Shazam for a $400 million. The startup, which had been valued as high as $1 billion, had previously raised $143 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins, DN Capital and IVP, as well as, Sony Music, Universal Music and Access Industries, which owns Warner Music.
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Apple is on the verge of acquiring Shazam for $400 million, according to multiple reports, far less than a recent $1 billion valuation.
While wildly popular, Shazam appears to have struggled with revenue; and recently Google added its own audio recognition solution into some of its free products. Kleiner Perkins also invested in Shazam competitor SoundHound.
“We have heard that the deal is being signed this week, and will be announced on Monday,” reports Techcrunch, who broke the story, “although that could always change.”
It’s unclear exactly how Apple might use Shazam’s technology, though it could be used to strengthen Siri, which some analysts say has lagged behind Google and Amazon’s Alexa audio recognition solutions. It’s also not hard to imagine that the often used Save To Spotify feature within the Shazam app will go away forever.