Securing new funding in oversubscribed Series C round
Delivering strong balance sheet for continued international development and breakthrough into broadcast monitoring
Award winning mobile music recognition company, Shazam Entertainment, has secured additional funding worth $5 million to pave the way for further international expansion into Europe, Asia and North America, and to broaden its scope in the multi-billion dollar broadcast monitoring sector.
Jerry Roest, CEO of Shazam Entertainment, explains: "Shazam has leapt forward in the past 12 months, and to capitalise on the remarkable progress in establishing our music recognition services worldwide, we decided to raise additional funds to accelerate growth further. This funding marks investor confidence in Shazam and will help us to build on our ability to drive ARPU for operators, provide music labels with innovative new ways to sell music, and explore new applications for our technology."
Shazam boasts a world's first in music recognition technology, and has already successfully introduced a consumer service to nine countries, including the UK, and has attracted more than three quarters of a million users. Shazam's technology allows music fans to use any mobile phone to identify a track, simply by pointing it at the music source and dialling a short code (e.g. 2580 in the UK or 44933 in Italy). The user receives an SMS 'tag' within seconds, giving details of title and artist. In the UK alone, consumers have already 'tagged' around 3 million tracks.
This new backing will accelerate Shazam's global expansion plans. The company recently announced 11 international contracts in Europe, Asia and Oceania,
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under which local partners - from network operators to media owners - are offering Shazam's consumer service under their own brands. Shazam has already launched in eight countries outside the UK, including Germany, Finland, Australia, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Malaysia and Austria.
The funding will also be used to fuel Shazam's drive into non-consumer areas such as broadcast monitoring, royalty tracking and information services for the music industry. Shazam's groundbreaking music recognition technology is now being integrated into existing airplay reporting techniques, and providing performance rights organisations with dramatically better measurement for royalties from radio, internet and TV play.
DN Capital joined as a new investor, and IDG Ventures Europe, already a key investor in the company, markedly increased its commitment to reflect its confidence in the management team, market and strategy. The round was filled out by other existing investors. Nenad Marovac of DN Capital will join the board of Shazam as part of the investment.
Ajay Chowdhury, Managing Partner, IDG Ventures Europe, says: "Shazam continues its excellent growth and will soon be available in over 18 countries around the world. It is also building a very strong business in the music monitoring sector and we remain pleased to have been working with the company through all these phases of its success."
Nenad Marovac, Managing Partner, DN Capital, added: "We are very pleased to be joining Shazam as investors. The market for music via mobile telephony is in its infancy and the company is very well positioned to capitalise on the explosive growth in this space." •
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