Podz offers a mobile app that surfaces 60-second clips from podcasts as a personalized "first audio newsfeed," letting users sample highlights and save full episodes for later. The clips are generated automatically by a machine-learning model trained on more than 100,000 hours of audio, created in consultation with journalists and audio editors. The feed personalizes to user interests and can integrate podcasts followed in Apple Podcasts and accounts followed on Twitter. CEO Doug Imbruce (formerly of Qwiki) leads a founding team that includes CTO Seye Ojumu, Head of Design Rasmus Zwickson and iOS lead Greg Page. The company has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding from institutional and angel backers to scale product development and creator tools. Podz plans to add creative and monetization features for podcasters and aims to increase audio creation and monetization substantially, targeting a 10x increase in audio creation and a 100x increase in monetization. The article situates Podz's opportunity within broader metrics — about 100 million U.S. podcast listeners and the claim that only 1% of podcasts reach 5,000+ listeners — and cites early usage signals that listeners follow many more shows on Podz than they subscribe to elsewhere.

Total raised

$3M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Feb 2021