Apps firm Shazam Entertainment has published results for its last full financial year, ended 30 June 2013, and confirmed a new funding round led by Clifton Capital.
Shazam’s revenues rose 42% year-on-year to £31.02m, while net losses narrowed to £1.98m from £3.33m in Shazam’s previous fiscal year, according to the financials, which were published through Companies House in the UK.
The period covered by the latest results saw Shazam expanding aggressively into the TV and advertising markets, after initially building its business based on apps identifying music playing in the real world, and directing users to buy the songs.
In February 2013, Shazam’s EVP of marketing David Jones said that the company’s expansion into TV was driving revenues higher, as it ran campaigns to get people tagging TV ads for more than 140 brands.
“The minimum price is $75k, but most cost between $75k and $200k for a campaign that runs for a couple of months. So with 200 campaigns where we’re getting paid low-six-figures on average,” said Jones at the time.
“This is already a double-digit million business on its own. Shazam for TV advertising is going to become our primary revenue stream very quickly, and that’s the way we’re going to grow to being a multi-billion dollar company.”
£31m of revenues in the company’s fiscal year to 30 June 2013 represents a step along that way, although it is unclear how rapidly Shazam’s income grew over the second half of 2013 and beyond.
By the end of June 2013, Shazam’s app had been used by more than 375m people globally since its launch – a number that has since swelled to more than 400m. A more important figure: CEO Rich Riley said in January that Shazam had 86m active users averaging 17m daily tags.
Shazam’s revenues have grown steadily over recent years. In the year ended 30 June 2010, it reported £10.6m of annual revenues, but a loss of £635k. The following year, the company posted revenues of £15.6m, and a net loss of £619k. Then, in the year ended 30 June 2012, Shazam posted revenues of £21.8m and a net loss of £3.3m.
No profits yet, then, but Shazam has been raising plenty of funding to fuel its growth. In June 2011, Shazam raised $32m from a group of VC companies including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Institutional Venture Partners and DN Capital.
Then, in July 2013, it raised $40m from Latin American telco America Movil as part of a deal designed to drive awareness and usage of Shazam in the region. $20m of that was invested in new shares issued by Shazam, while the telco also bought secondary stock from existing shareholders.
The latest financials reveal that this month (March 2014) Shazam raised another $10m from selling more new shares to Clifton Capital and one other unnamed investor. The former company also led a group of co-investors in buying more secondary shares from existing shareholders. That corresponds to rumours of a $20m round earlier this month.
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