Shazam lands $40M in funding from telecom boss Carlos Slim
The music identification smartphone app gets major backing as it focuses on recognition software for TV shows and ads.
It appears that the smartphone music app Shazam is headed toward greener pastures.
The company has just received $40 million in backing from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, according to Reuters. Apparently, Shazam plans to use the funding to continue to build out the TV portion of the app.
"Shazam is defining a new category of media engagement that combines the power of mobile with traditional broadcast media and advertising," Slim said in a statement, according to Reuters. With the new investment from Slim, Shazam's total funding since 2009 comes to $72 million.
Shazam, which has 350 million users, is best known for letting users tag and identify songs, but recently it has made forays into the television world.
In April 2012, Shazam for iOS started letting users identify enabled television shows and ads to find out what they're watching and see additional content for the show or ad. Then, in September, the company announced that the app for iOS, Android, and Windows could work with programming on more than 160 U.S. channels.
"Within 18 months we expect TV will significantly outperform the music side (of the business) and that's part of this investment," Shazam executive chairman Andrew Fisher told Reuters.