Russian state owned fund of funds Russian Venture Company (RVC) has participated indirectly in a $32 million round of financing for London based Shazam Entertainment, the developer of a popular application for mobile devices.
The investment was made through Institutional Venture Partners XIII (IVP), a prominent later stage venture capital and growth equity firm which was joined in 2010 by Russian Venture Capital II LP, a fully owned subsidiary of RVC registered in the UK.
IVP XIII participated in Shazam’s round of financing along with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as well as Shazam’s earliest investor, DN Capital.
The Shazam mobile application allows users to identify the name of an artist and the name of a given composition using just a fragment of a song. Shazam Entertainment intends to use the new investment to support its growth from a current 150 million users to 250 million in two years. The funding would also be used for the development of a new class of applications, particularly, for mobile commerce as well as for the expansion of its service into television.
Last April, IVP XIII led a round of financing for Sugar Inc., a global media company for women. In May, it participated in the financing of Clearspring Technologies, a US based online data giant.
In April 2010, RVC’s fully owned subsidiary Russian Venture Capital I LP invested $10 million in BrightSource Energy, Inc., a provider of solar thermal power systems.
Sources: Russian Venture Company, Shazam Entertainment, Vedomosti
