Apple To Buy Swell For $30 Million: Apple Acquires Pandora-Like App For Internet Radio
As per reports, it is said that Apple is set to pay $30 million to acquire Swell. Swell is a Pandora-like app for internet talk radio. Swell was founded back in 2012 in Mountain View and led by CEO and co-founder G.D. "Ram" Ramkumar. Swell takes the big parts of Pandora and then applies them to talk radio. It even goes a step ahead to deliver an awesome talk radio experience inside the car, a transition that has been difficult for some music streaming start ups. The company raised a total of $7.2 million in a number of years. The $1.8 million round was led by CRV and Andreessen Horowitz in 2012. The remaining $5.4 million series was led by Draper fisher Jurvetson. It had the participation from InterWest Partners, Draper Nexus Ventures, Google Ventures and Correlation Ventures. The latest round just closed sometime early this month.
It is reported that as a part of the acquisition, the Swell app will be shut down this week as the employees are headed for the 1 Infinite Loop. Currently, Apple is working on the music strategy, both in the car and anywhere else. $3 billion was spent by the company to acquire Beats Music in a deal that is still seeking the U.S. regulatory approval. It is also said that Europe has approved the deal today.
It is said that Apple is set on adding a team of entrepreneurs with experience to their team, which should be able to help it through its struggle with Podcast app, and may also end up transforming it into something totally new. We are aware that this is not the first acquisition seen through by Ramkumar and his team. It is reported that back in 2009, they sold their startup SnapTell to and Amazon subsidiary A9.
We have tried to get to Apple for a comment on this but we have not yet managed that. All we have to do is to wait and see how the whole sale pulls through. We shall keep you updated once we get additional info.
