Apple has acquired Shazam, the company confirmed on Monday. The deal for the music and audio recognition app is reported to be worth $400 million. Shazam had been valued as high as $1 billion, had previously raised $143 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins and music groups Sony, Universal and Access Industries, which also owns Warner Music.
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In a statement released today, Apple confirmed that it has acquired Shazam:
“We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple. Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS. Today, it’s used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, across multiple platforms. Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to our users. We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today’s agreement.”
While wildly popular, Shazam has 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. 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.
MORE: Shazam Is To Apple As The Echo Nest Is To Spotify [Mark Mulligan]
