Music identification service Shazam confirms new $20M round and $500M valuation

Today, we identified two things: which new pop princess sings that song playing inside the local Starbucks, and that handy music- and TV-tagging service Shazam has officially raised a new $20 million funding round from undisclosed investors. This brings its total to $92 million.

As we previously reported, the company was rumored to be raising this new round, although it declined to comment at the time.

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People use Shazam’s smartphone apps to pick up and identify songs that are playing around them, such as at a bar, a store, or a concert. When activated, the apps first “listen” to a song and then provide information about it, such as the title and artist, as well as links to iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube uploads of the song. The service also expanded into U.S.-based TV shows in 2012.

This new round of funding comes only a little over half a year after the company received a hefty $40 million investment from Carlos Slim’s America Movil in June. Today’s additional funding raises Shazam’s valuation to “approximately a half billion dollars,” according to an email from the company.

While Shazam did not provide details about its plans for the money, it will likely support the company’s international expansion and growing TV advertising efforts. The latter is an area the company aimed to focus on when it raised its last round, as VentureBeat previously reported.

Previous investors also include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Institutional Venture Partners and DN Capital.

The London-based company was founded in 2002 by Chris Barton, Philip Inghelbrecht, Dhiraj Mukherjee and Avery Wang. The service is available in 200 countries and 33 languages, according its website.