Audioboo investors including UBC Media Group have participated in a successful fundraising for the company, enabling expansion into America and upgraded apps.
UBC invested £330,000 to maintain its shareholding at 36.5% in a round which saw participation from all of Audioboo’s major existing investors, including Channel 4 TV, AudioGo and also brought a new US investor to the company.
Yea networks syndicates programmes across North America, including Kidd Kraddick in the Morning, who’ll begin using Audioboo on his programme in the New Year as part of the deal.
Audioboo had 161,000 users at the start of 2012 but grew to 862,000 by November, when 5.4 million audio streams were served to users, up 54% month on month.
The investment in Audioboo is part of UBC’s broader strategy, outlined in June, to concentrate on the development of the company’s digital and interactive divisions.
Simon Cole, Chief Executive of UBC commented: “Watching the growth of Audioboo has been one of the most exciting developments in the last year. The media industry is generally increasingly focussing on the way broadcast services can be linked to online and especially social networks. We are perfectly positioned, both through our investment in Audioboo and in developments like our gaming apps, to benefit from these changes.”
Audioboo operates a mobile and web-based platform that allows broadcasters and content creators to distribute audio clips via social media. It is used widely by most of the UK radio sector and adopted by the BBC as an official technology partner. On mobile or web applications, users can browse content uploaded by others or create content themselves, audio can then be easily and automatically attached to a tweet or sent to Facebook friends.
The service enables users to perform quick interviews via smart phones, add a photo and location, and embed it into any website, like this:
Posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2012 at 7:34 am by RadioToday UK