Which music intelligence company did Spotify acquire in March 2014?

Spotify acquired the music intelligence company The Echo Nest in March 2014.

The Echo Nest began as a research spin-off from the MIT Media Lab and was founded in 2005 by Tristan Jehan and Brian Whitman. Its technology combined analysis of audio with information gathered from the web, helping identify musical characteristics, organize genres, and model listener taste. That made it particularly valuable to a streaming service trying to recommend music at enormous scale.

Spotify announced the acquisition on March 6, 2014. The deal was reported at about €49.7 million, paid through a combination of cash and Spotify equity. The Echo Nest’s data and recommendation technology were integrated into Spotify rather than remaining a separate consumer-facing music service.

The company is often confused with Shazam or Gracenote because all three worked with music information. Their roles were different: Shazam became best known for identifying songs from short recordings, while Gracenote focused heavily on music metadata. The Echo Nest’s distinctive emphasis was music intelligence, recommendation, discovery, and analysis. Its developer API was later shut down, with developers encouraged to use Spotify’s API instead.