Apple is buying Shazam at a big discount

Apple plans to buy Shazam, the song-recognition company, for hundreds of millions of dollars.

The deal, which could be announced as soon as next week, is expected to value the company at around $400 million, according to three people familiar with the deal. That price would be a significant discount from its last round of funding, which valued the company at around $1 billion; the company had raised at least $140 million since 2002.

TechCrunch first reported on the pending deal, which is expected to be announced next week.

Shazam CEO Rich Riley and spokesman Giovanni Bossio have not responded to repeated requests for comment; an Apple rep declined to comment.

Shazam’s music-recognition technology used to be novel, but now it’s relatively easy for anyone to replicate that product. So Apple must think the brand itself has value, and it’s reasonable to assume it will integrate the feature into its iOS operating system.

It’s not clear what will happen to Shazam’s existing deals with Spotify, which competes with Apple’s music-streaming service, or Snapchat, which has integrated Shazam into its camera screen.

Snap had also approached Shazam about a possible deal, but Apple won out.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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