Spotify acquires music database WhoSampled

Spotify has acquired the community-run database tracking sampled music, WhoSampled, the company announced Wednesday. The streaming service had also shared the news as part of its Wednesday blog post about new song credits features.

Deal terms were not disclosed, but Spotify confirmed to TechCrunch the acquisition is for both the WhoSampled team and database. (The company had only a handful of employees, per data on Pitchbook and LinkedIn, which both confirm around 10 staffers.)

Launched in 2008, London-based WhoSampled offers an extensive database of songs, samples, covers, remixes, artists, and more. According to its website, it’s now tracking more than 1.2 million songs and nearly 622,000 samples. That data is powering Spotify’s latest features, like its upcoming music discovery tool SongDNA, also announced on Wednesday.

However, WhoSampled was known to Spotify for some time, as it had partnered with the streamer back in 2016 to allow its users to access their Spotify playlists and saved tracks in its app.

In WhoSampled’s announcement about the acquisition, the company said its standalone platform and brand would remain after the deal’s closure, and it expected to offer some user-facing improvements as it becomes part of Spotify’s larger business. For instance, the company said moderation times for submissions would be sped up, the site will be able to remove display ads in the weeks ahead, and its mobile apps will become free downloads with free subscriptions.

“Through our recent discussions with Spotify, it became clear that we share a strong belief in the power of musical context – and a vision for helping listeners go deeper into the songs they love,” the post penned by the WhoSampled team reads. “Spotify has shown a genuine commitment to our mission, and we couldn’t have found a better home for WhoSampled,” it stated.