Hate them or love them, podcasts are here to stay. They’re gaining in popularity by the minute, and investors are clearly taking notice: Luminary Media, a subscription-based podcast network, just announced a $60 million funding round from New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
The venture round brings the company’s total funding amount to $100 million. Their last round, also from NEA, was a $40 million contribution in May 2018.
[Luminary] has figured out a smart and sustainable way to push the business forward — better discovery for listeners, allowing creators to focus on creating the highest-quality content possible and stop worrying about selling ads."
This comes on the heels of some major podcast news: Spotify recently acquired Anchor and Gimlet, and Vox expanded its partnership with Stitcher. The goal of these acquisitions was to provide a subscription-based podcast service for listeners — essentially, to become the Netflix of podcasts — and that’s exactly what Luminary has set out to do.
Luminary hopes to differentiate itself from the pack with its exclusive content as well as its business model. According to a report in Business Insider, the company offers bigger payouts to producers, more stability for podcast creators thanks to its subscription model and better opportunities for revenue generation — think more user-generated content and fewer advertisements.
“[Luminary] has figured out a smart and sustainable way to push the business forward — better discovery for listeners, allowing creators to focus on creating the highest-quality content possible and stop worrying about selling ads,” Liza Landsman, a partner at NEA, told The New York Times.
Even with all of the major companies breaking into the podcast space, Sacks told the publication he’s confident in his startup’s approach.
“Just like in the premium television space, there is more than enough room for multiple offerings to thrive,” he said.
