Spotify is at the negotiating table, with a view to potentially buying a large-scale podcasting company.
New York-based Gimlet Media, which was founded in 2014, closed a Series A funding round of $6m in December 2015, valuing the company at $30m.
Then, in 2017, the firm took on two more rounds of investment. The first came in August that year – a Series B led by Stripes Group, which injected $15m into Gimlet and valued it at around $70m.
The second, for $5m, came a month later from British advertising firm WPP.
According to both Recode and the Wall Street Journal, Spotify is currently in discussions to potentially buy Gimlet, which creates narrative podcasts such as Startup, Crimetown and The Pitch.
The company was co-founded by Alex Blumberg, a radio journalist, as well as a producer for This American Life, and the co-founder of Planet Money.
His co-founder at Gimlet was Matthew Lieber, a former radio producer at WNYC who worked as a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group.
Spotify has gotten into podcasts in a big way over the past year.
In August last year, it locked down a new series of The Joe Budden Podcast – a very popular cast for hip-hop enthusiasts.
In the same month, Spotify debuted its first ever brand-partnered, first-party podcast series – the five-episode ‘Ebb & Flow’ hosted by Jasmine Solano and sponsored by New Amsterdam Vodka.Music Business Worldwide
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