Stockholm-based Acast has acquired Podchaser, arguably the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative podcast database. The financial details of the transaction remain undisclosed.
Over the past five years, Oklahoma City-based Podchaser has grown organically from a Reddit post asking about an “IMDb for podcasts” into a platform that tracks over 4.5 million podcasts, 17 million hosts, guest, and crew credits, hundreds of thousands of ratings and reviews, and sponsor data on the top 5,000 podcasts. In total, the company claims to have 1.7 billion data points readily available.
Having recently announced integrations with Meta and everyone’s favourite curmudgeon Marc Maron joining the Acast Creator Network, according to Acast, the addition of Podchaser, in combination with its own efforts, will see the industry’s, “richest set of authoritative, structured metadata.”
Strong words in a world of Spotify.
Podchaser will continue to operate as a separate brand and business, simply now under the umbrella of, and access to, Avast’s resources.
“Podchaser and Acast have a shared ethos around supercharging the open podcast ecosystem and creating the best tools possible for listeners, podcasters, and advertisers. It’s this conviction, coupled with Acast’s relentless execution, that makes it the perfect home for Podchaser’s continued mission,” commented Podchaser CEO Bradley Davis. “To everyone who has helped make Podchaser what it is – from all the feedback we’ve received from beta testers and helpful contributors to all of the people who jumped head-first into adding reviews, credits, lists, and tags – we thank you.”
Prior to the acquisition, Podchaser had raised $5.7 million and made two acquisitions of its own: Podrover and Podcharts.
Acast has raised a total of $126.2 million and is backed by 10 investors including the EIB, MOOR, and Bonnier Ventures.
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