Spotify has announced that it acquired a music intelligence company called The Echo Nest.

According to its website, The Echno Nest provides data and music services to developers, media services, social networks, and big companies including iHeartradio, MOG, Rdio, SiriusXM, Spotify, BBC.com, Foursquare, MTV, Twitter, VEVO, Yahoo, Nokia, Coca Cola, Intel, Microsoft, and Reebok. In fact, The Echo Nest platform reaches roughly 100 million people every month via more than 400 apps apps and websites.

"The acquisition supports Spotify’s strategy to grow global music consumption and overall revenue back to the music industry by building the best user experience and music discovery engine for millions of global fans," explained Spotify. "This deal will allow Spotify to leverage The Echo Nest’s in depth musical understanding and tools for curation to drive music discovery for millions of users around the globe."

Spotify, which integrated APIs with The Echo Nest in 2012 so it could tap into the company's music intelligence technology, likely acquired The Echno Nest in order to further leverage its musical database and tools for curation. Spotify will now be able to provide a better music discovery experience for its users - and it promised to keep The Echo Nest API free and open to other companies and developers.

Apart from integrating APIs, Spotify and The Echo Nest, along with Microsoft, developed and launched a service called Mixshape in early 2013. The online MixShape software takes an existing Spotify playlist (or you can try out some of Microsoft's suggested ones) and turns them into a visual wave, putting tracks depending on their content into an order it believes is optimised for circumstance you've chosen (like mood).

READ: Microsoft's MixShape promises perfect Spotify playlists whatever the mood

“We’ve been fans of The Echo Nest for a really long time and honoured to have their talented team join Spotify,” said Daniel Ek, founder and CEO of Spotify. “We are hyper focused on creating the best user experience and it starts with building the best music intelligence platform on the planet. With The Echo Nest joining Spotify, we will make a big leap forward in our quest to play you the best music possible.”

And finally, Spotify said The Echo Nest will continue to operate out of its headquarters in Massachusetts but will also operate in San Francisco.