Audioboom raises £1.5m as it continues to expand content library

(Sharecast News) - Podcast network Audioboom announced that, in order to fund its "rapidly increasing" portfolio of podcasting content, it has raised £1.5m of new equity funding for growth, via a subscription of 115,384,670 new ordinary shares at a price of 1.3p each.The AIM-traded firm said proceeds of the subscription would primarily be used to meet the upfront payments required to secure new and existing established podcast content and their audiences, with a view to generating "materially higher revenues" throughout 2019 and beyond.It claimed that after eight weeks of the year, its forward in-read advertising bookings and monthly recurring revenues from programmatic advertising and podcast subscriptions for 2019 already exceeded its total revenues for the 13 month period ended 31 December.The company's cash position remained stable, at similar levels as reported as at the end of 2018, the board added.It explained that due to the growth and maturing of Audioboom's monetisation model and the professionalisation of the podcast industry, it believed that it was now able to provide increasingly accurate forecast revenues for major, established podcasts, using metrics around audience size, advertising sell through rates and average cost per mille (CPM, or cost per thousand listens charged to advertisers) for any given content genre.Audioboom said its forecasting was enabling it to compete for - and win - established podcasts at an improved rate by offering "highly competitive, recoupable advances" and minimum monthly revenue guarantees to the creators of popular podcasts.Some of the content partnerships recently negotiated by Audioboom included Los Angeles-based digital video studio Studio71, established podcast producer SBI Audio, Formula1 and Beyond the Grid for the forthcoming F1 season, and Barcroft Media.The board said it was currently in discussions with various content providers regarding bringing established podcast content with significant revenue potential onto ots platform.It said the majority of the proceeds of the subscription were therefore intended to be used for recoupable advances in respect of such new opportunities, together with the re-signing of existing leading podcasts currently within its portfolio.The remainder of the proceeds would be used to fund the continued growth of the 'Audioboom Originals Network', which is Audioboom's internal production studio, via content creation and promotion."This new growth funding will allow the company to acquire high revenue producing, established podcasts which will further drive revenues and strengthen Audioboom's United States operations," said chief executive officer Rob Proctor."It is a great reflection on the business and its progress to have the backing of both new and existing institutional investors in the Subscription, including a participation by Harwood Capital as a new investor and Candy Ventures, our leading existing shareholder."Proctor noted that recent corporate activity in the industry had seen high profile acquisitions and fundraises."The comparative valuations of these transactions could indicate that 2019 is the year that Audioboom and its shareholders will start to benefit from the foundations that we have laid down and the platform and content that we have created."