Spotify acquires startups Soundwave and Cord Project to expand social reach

Soundwave is a social music app that helps users discover and share music, connecting with other fans in the process. The second purchase is Cord Project, a simple voice messaging service for phones, tablets and smartwatches.

The terms of both deals were not disclosed by Spotify.

Music streaming company Spotify has primed itself for expansion with the acquisition of two startups. Spotify, for instance, doubled its subscribers from May 2014 to June 2015, and has more than 75 million users worldwide. Such apps include Shhout! and Chhirp. Cord Project, on the other hand, is best known for Cord, a voice messaging platform for mobile devices.

While Cord Project will not be shutting down, all of it’s current projects will be sun setting, including Cord, the company revealed in a blog post.

Music streaming is moving more and more towards creating tailor made experiences for individual listeners’ tastes, so this new addition to Spotify means more hidden gems uncovered for its customers.

With Rdio’s recent exit from the music streaming business, only a few major industry players remain: Spotify, Google Play Music, Groove, Apple Music and Deezer, which recently raised $109 million in equity funding from a private investor. It boasts 1.5m downloads in 190 countries.

The amount Spotify is prepared to invest in Soundwave is unknown, but talks are understood to have been going on for a number of weeks. For now, the only clue we have as to what Spotify might be up to comes from a comment by Shiva Rajaraman, Spotify’s VP of Product.

The first acquisition is a company called Soundwave, a social music app that allows users to create profiles and track the content they’re listening to on various streaming services.