By Mark Kleinman, City Editor
Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms magnate who has become the world's richest man, is investing tens of millions of pounds in Shazam, the British digital music company.
Sky News can reveal that Mr Slim, whose net worth is estimated at $73bn (£49bn), is injecting $40m (£26.8m) through his wireless group, America Movil.
The investment will see America Movil, which is the biggest mobile network in Mexico, become a significant minority shareholder in Shazam, which uses sophisticated technology to help users identify music and then proceed to buy the track with a single click.
The deal represents a coming-of-age for Shazam, which has in the past struggled to convince many in the technology industry that it can make a sustained move into profitability.
America Movil has more than 262 million wireless subscribers across Latin America, one of the world's fastest-growing regions for mobile services.
The exact size of Mr Slim's stake in Shazam is unclear although people familiar with the deal said his investment valued the technology company at broadly the same sum as its most recent fundraising round in 2011.
That would reflect investors' caution over the valuations being attached to even the most well-known digital companies, with the soaring multiples enjoyed by some groups evoking echoes of the original dotcom boom.
Shazam came to London in 2000 after failing to secure funding in Silicon Valley, and has since gone on to become one of the UK's most internationally-recognised technology start-ups.
The music company, which is branching out into television and other consumer services, recently appointed Rich Riley, a senior Yahoo! executive, as its new chief executive.
The appointment was interpreted by technology analysts as a signal that Shazam is likely to pursue a stock market listing in the next few years.
Andrew Fisher, Shazam's executive chairman, said when Mr Riley was appointed that he expected the company to be worth $1bn (£671m) when it went public.
America Movil's investment in Shazam - which describes itself as "the world's leading media engagement company" - will be accompanied by a strategic partnership across the markets in which the telecoms group operates.
The music company now has roughly 350m users around the world, a figure that has doubled in the last two years. Its number of active monthly users has trebled to more than 70m, with sales of digital products now more than $300m (£201m) annually through affiliates such as Apple's iTunes service.
Shazam declined to comment ahead of an announcement about the investment from America Movil, which insiders said was likely as soon as Monday.
Mr Slim's wealth is estimated by Forbes magazine to put him marginally ahead of Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder.
The UK-based company employs more than 180 people and has offices in Australia, South Korea and the US.
Among Shazam's existing investors are Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the most prolific firms in Silicon Valley, and Brent Hoberman, the co-founder of Lastminute.com who has gone on to create a string of other tech start-ups.
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