The audio and podcast market is estimated to grow over $50 billion in the next five years as more audiences are opting to discover short-form and compelling audio. A fast-growing Copenhagen-based subscription service for podcasts and audio entertainment, Podimo, has understood this immense opportunity and wants to make use of it to grow its business.
In a recent development, the ‘Netflix of Podcasts’ has picked up a $78 million Series B funding in a round led by Highland Europe and 83North. Also, existing investors Heartcore, Chr. Augustinus, Saban Ventures, Possible Ventures and Headline participated in the round. Notably, this round comes nine months after Podimo’s Series A round.
The company will deploy the proceeds of this round to accelerate its investments into exclusive and premium content from the important and existing voices, make bigger payouts to content creators and expand into new markets.
Its the ‘Netflix for Podcasts’
Podimo was founded by Morten Strunge, Sverre Dueholm, Nikolaj Koppel, Eva Lægdsgaard, and Andreas Sachse in Copenhagen in 2019. One of the co-founders, Strunge, has a good track record in subscription media products through Mofibo, an audiobook service that was acquired by Storytel. With this podcast company, they intend to capitalise on the rising consumption of podcasts.
The founders of Podimo want to address the challenges in the podcast industry – discoverability and monetisation. It resolves these challenges by intelligently matching listeners to the right content they want and providing a new revenue stream for creators so that they create great storytelling.
Revenue-sharing model
Podimo has launched a freemium model of its app to provide a superior experience to users who want to discover podcasts than the various streaming and download services available right now. It works with the intention to make it easy and seamless to find podcasts. The freemium model will offer unlimited listening as well.
There is a premium version also that provides unlimited features and access to over several hundreds of shows and content that are exclusive to Podimo. The membership fee paid by Podimo will be shared with podcast creates directly as they listen to their content each month. As Podimo supports creators directly with its user-centric revenue-sharing model, it creates a better direct-to-fan relationship.
Currently, this service is live in Denmark, Germany, and Spanish-speaking nations. The premium version of its app offers a seamless user experience via AI-driven personalised recommendations, as well as, video trailers.
Collection of exclusive content
Podimo is the largest producer of original and exclusive content and a partner to a slew of biggest content producers in Europe, including the Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo. Furthermore, it has a niche in creating content in local languages and lets massive podcast hits such as “The Missing”, “Mord i Nord” and “Swindled” be successful even in other markets by translating them. It is touted that 93 percent of listeners prefer listening to podcasts in their native language.
With its success, Podimo Deutschland has found its way to the top 10 podcast subscription channels as the only non-US service. This year, the company has doubled its number of weekly exclusive shows and has hosted more than 950 original and exclusive shows It offers an independent channel for kids – Podimo Kids, which is aimed at kids between 2 and 10 years.
