Yes just like that, another app worth $1 billion dollars, and there are talks abut going public, yes an app that gives you the name of a song and artist singing it is worth $1,000,000,000 This is no make believe land, this is reality. Just continue to thank BUBBLE ben bernanke for adding so many worthless trillions to this economy that we now have apps worth billions of dollars, yes I know this time it's different..... This app has joined the $1B valuation club Arjun Kharpal | @ArjunKharpal 2 Hours AgoCNBC.com 21 SHARES COMMENTSUber, Airbnb and Snapchat are members. The London-based company which launched in 2002, allows users to identify a song which is playing at the tap of a button on the app. Shazam raised $30 million in its latest round of funding, giving the company a $1.03 billion valuation, the app's executive chairman told CNBC. Simon Dawson | Bloomberg via Getty Images "I can tell you it's a combination of institutional investors and private funding," Andrew Fisher said in a phone interview, not wishing to disclose the name of the investors. The funding round gives the new investors a stake equivalent to "just under three percent", Fisher added. The latest round of funding comes despite Shazam reporting a pre-tax loss of £5.3 million ($8 million) in the six months to December 2013 on revenues of £16.9 million. But the app has been liked by high-profile investors including América Móvil boss Carlos Slim who poured $40 million into the company in 2013. Expansion And Shazam is looking to expand aggressively in order to diversify revenues and their business model. The company recently announced a tie-up with music-streaming service Spotify where users can identify the song with Shazam and play it directly through the music-streaming app. It has also recently been updated so that it works with Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 8. While music is core to the company, Fisher told CNBC that the company is looking to use its app to tap advertisers. The company already has a deal with British carmaker Jaguar where users can use the Shazam app when the car company's advert is playing and the uses will be taken through the user to the Jaguar website. Shazam is hoping to make more of these types of partnerships in the future with retailers, with the company taking a fixed fee for an advertising campaign. Read More$1 billion as milestone and omen "Our proposition is about bringing hundreds of millions of users to the brands and content owners by bringing value added experiences," Fisher said. IPO ahead? The app has now crossed 100 million monthly active users, and analysts said maintaining rapid user growth will be key to the company's future success in the advertising market. "Shazam has to maintain that user base and unless it does that it won't have that platform for building those advertising related services," Jack Kent, senior mobile analyst at IHS, told CNBC. Now Shazam has joined the likes of Uber and Airbnb, speculation is increasing that it could soon be considering going public. Fisher did not rule out an initial public offering but said Shazam is not "giving guidance" at the moment. "We do have a strong belief that Shazam will make a successful public company. We are open minding at this point in time," Fisher said.
It's a smart app, like 4 years ago when I first saw it, think I've used it maybe 5 times since, bought ZERO singles from it so errrrmmmm NO!! Google Search has this ability built into it these days aswell. Worlds definately gone NUTS!!