Spotify would be in an advanced stage of acquiring the podcast company for $ 230 million

Several sources, citing unnamed sources, reported Friday that Spotify was about to "acquire a podcast production company." The rumor agreement is not left out: 230 million dollars for the acquisition of Gimlet Media, the company responsible for high density podcasts such as Reply to all, Science Vs., and Start.

recoding and the the Wall Street newspaper each of them reported a Gimlet offer from Spotify in the vicinity of "over $ 200 million". Nick Quah, author of the Hot Pod newsletter, later said the figure would be closer to $ 230 million. The three reports point out that the agreement has not been finalized.

The reports recall that Gimlet's latest publicly-funded venture capital badessment was around $ 70 million in August 2017. Spotify had already acquired small music and streaming companies, including the Loudr.fm music rights data company the Soundtrap. virtual studio service, but neither the cost of the acquisition has been publicly announced (neither one nor the other of these would have amounted to nearly $ 230 million). More importantly, these acquisitions focused on platforms and technologies and not on potentially exclusive series and content.

The Gimlet public cache is increasing thanks to a particular development of 2018: the adaptation of the fictional Gimlet radio fiction podcast. Back home like a television series. This series, which received a two-season order, debuted as an exclusive Amazon Video in November of last year. It is produced and produced by Mr Robot creator Sam Esmail, and star Julia Roberts.

Such an acquisition would allow Spotify to strengthen its exclusive podcasts library, which currently consists of talk shows on music, such as Ebb and flow and The Joe Budden Show. None of the reports indicate whether an acquisition would lock any of Gimlet's past or present series as an exclusive Spotify.