US-based podcast app developer Castbox has closed a $13.5m series B round featuring SIG China, an investment fund run by technology and trading firm Susquehanna International Group, TechCrunch reported on Wednesday.
Venture capital group IDG Capital also participated in the round, as did VC firms Qiming Venture Partners and GSR Ventures.
Founded in China in 2016, Castbox has developed a podcasting app that uses natural language processing to transcribe and index the content of each podcast. The platform also deploys machine learning technology to offer personalised listening recommendations.
Castbox will put the funding towards the distribution of in-house podcast releases for its Castbox Originals label, which is also available on third-party podcasting platforms. It also plans to upgradd the platform’s usability, content discovery and personalisation capacity.
Renee Wang, founder and chief executive of CastBox, said: “We are investing a chunk of the new capital into original programming and strategic partnerships with creators.
“Over the next two months, we have committed to launching more than a dozen Castbox Originals in addition to the ones we have already released in the past 30 days.
Castbox has now raised a total of $29.5m, according to TechCrunch. It closed a $12.8m series A round in June 2017 that was co-led by IDG Capital and Qiming with commitments from SIG China, GSR Ventures and ZhenFund.