We’re quick approaching half a billion folks listening to podcasts, and as we speak one of many unbiased gamers hoping to money in on that exercise has introduced some funding to develop.
Podimo, the Copenhagen-based podcasting startup that’s constructed round a Netflix-style month-to-month subscription price, has raised one other €44 million ($48 million at as we speak’s charges) in funding, an all-equity spherical that it is going to be utilizing to develop throughout the entire of its enterprise: it is going to be enhancing manufacturing instruments; increasing its distribution community alongside its personal platform; and going deeper into localization.
Podimo is at present obtainable in Denmark, Norway, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands, Finland, and Latin America — the place it prices between $5 and $7 per 30 days to listeners, and better charges to creators to make use of its instruments — and the plan is so as to add extra international locations to that record.
The funding comes after a yr that has seen Podimo’s common engagement per consumer rise to twenty hours per 30 days, and its subscription base develop by 80% — though in an interview, Morten Strunge, the CEO and founder, declined, a number of occasions, to reveal an precise subscriber quantity. He mentioned there are round 350 reveals revealed weekly, with solely round “a handful” of creators making a number of reveals, that means it has round 350 creators utilizing the platform as we speak.
The Danish Export and Funding Fund (EIFO) is main the spherical, with HighlandX and Augustinus Fabrikker additionally taking part. Strunge mentioned that previous to this spherical, the corporate had raised simply over €200 million. (The final spherical, simply over a yr in the past in September 2022, was simply over €58 million.)
Strunge declined to reveal valuation, however for some additional context on that: he confirmed it was an upround, and that the corporate is now worthwhile in its house market of Denmark and is specializing in moving into the black in every single place else. (For what it’s value, the final estimate on PitchBook was $240 million, however since that determine now precedes the final two funding rounds, it’s not a really correct information right here.)
Podimo’s funding and traction are coming at a difficult time for the podcasting business. Whereas there are clear indicators of the viewers of listeners rising, for these hoping to make a enterprise out of podcasting — “these” contains each the businesses constructing podcasting platforms and instruments, in addition to creators — the numbers nonetheless won’t be including up.
In September, the WSJ wrote an illuminating piece about how the chances appeared stacked towards Spotify’s $1 billion wager on podcasting, an determine that included a number of unique (learn: costly) offers with high-profile names, its platform investments and extra. Earlier this yr, Google determined to close down its standalone podcasting app and fold operations into YouTube: a sign that it’s nonetheless searching for the precise components to be a success participant within the area. And in June, it emerged that SiriusXM would shut down Stitcher, one of the longstanding, iconic names in podcasting, simply three years after shopping for it.
One notable element about Podimo in that context is that it stays an unbiased providing, separate of any bigger platform play, and that doubtlessly provides it extra agility, but in addition a danger of getting crowded out by the enterprise priorities of these greater operations. In spite of everything, it nonetheless depends on different platforms each for direct distribution (as an app), and not directly (to cross put up pods for its creators, to advertise them and extra).
Strunge believes that Podimo’s place as a “one cease store” helps it stand out from the remainder of the podcasting fray. Creators can use the platform to supply content material (and embrace “native” promoting inside it, by means of Podimo’s personal advert enterprise, certainly one of a number of acquisitions it has made through the years); distribute it on Podimo itself; use the platform to distribute that content material to different podcasting platforms; after which collect and browse metrics on all of that exercise.
The plan can be to take this mannequin additional, Strunge mentioned, with a deal with ever-more “hyper native” content material. That can embrace producing extra content material in several languages, and offering extra localised data to folks.
The localised nature, he added, is one purpose why promoting in podcasts is so difficult. “Greater than ninety p.c of consumption is available in native languages as we speak,” he mentioned. “So you will have a fragmented provide facet. The media business nonetheless has issue with scale when serving that.” (And for the report, Podimo has no plans within the speedy future to introduce advertising-based tiers, decreasing or eradicating subscription charges, he mentioned.)
Content material, in the meantime, nonetheless has quite a lot of room for innovation, in his opinion. The corporate has just lately began constructing out what he described as short-form podcasts: six or seven-minute information updates customised for native markets, not in contrast to information briefs that you just would possibly get on conventional radio.
If the mannequin is to maneuver nearer to what’s already on the market available in the market, the massive problem can be to proceed differentiating itself and whether or not it could possibly accomplish that on a worthwhile foundation. And competitors isn’t letting up. Taking simply two latest examples, Spotify is now working with OpenAI to create automated translations of podcasts. And Apple is increasing its many creator instruments.