by Alan Levy
As announced in today’s New York Times, we closed a $4.6m Series A financing round lead by Scott Sipprelle and The Kraft Group.
We launched BlogTalkRadio almost two years ago as an idea that we thought had some legs. As has been well-documented in the past, our theory was quite simple: Would bloggers, or in fact anyone, be interested in creating audio content using a phone? Would it be possible to create a new distribution platform and medium, where anyone with a phone and something to say could establish and build an audience? If this is such a good idea, why is no one else doing it? We had many more questions than answers.
Fast forward from the fall of 2006 and we have broadcast close to 100,000 shows. We have had Academy Award winners, Presidential candidates, best-selling authors and many other notables. We have thousands of active hosts talking about the things that interest them and their audience. Our content is listened to more than 3 million times a month and as new content is created and added to the long tail, the number of listeners continues to grow rapidly.
We work with major companies to create private radio stations which can reside on our site or off. So while our brand is building and the network is growing, we offer an opportunity for any company to create conversations around their products, beliefs and ideas.
We are so excited about the strategic investor group we have assembled. Each of our investors not only believes that this platform is truly unique and powerful, but can introduce us to so many potential commercial partners.
We simply couldn’t be more excited about how this company is evolving and now we have the capital in place to accomplish many things. We are planning major enhancements to our user interface and user experience. We will invest in content and distribution as well as further developing our ad sales platform. We are also looking at developing many new products including a highly differentiated video platform, audio to text transcription applications and much more.
Alan
June 25, 2008 at 9:55 am
Alan,
You are just so creative. Thank you for all you do. You have given the author and others a voice where they did not have one. New authors daily are being able to show and talk about their books to a wide range of people.
Thank you,
Lesa
June 25, 2008 at 12:02 pm
[...] Alan has the full details on the company’s blog . [...]
June 25, 2008 at 12:09 pm
[...] Levy, the CEO, posted on the company blog ( which is hosted on WordPress.com VIP ) explaining on how they got to this point and the power of [...]
June 25, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Congratulations BTR. What a fantastic win for all of us. Keep up the good work. We’re looking forward to the enhancements and new ideas you have in store.
Thank you for providing our group with this wonderful venue.
All the best,
Marty Owings - Radio Free Nation
June 25, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Congratulations!
That is awesome news, Alan. It’s great to be associated with BTR. Thanks for keeping us informed and moving the company forward. The possibilities are amazing.
Barbara
*The RecipeBox
*Cleveland Talks
*Sparkle Club
June 25, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Hi Alan; thanks so much for doing this whole “thing”. Blog Talk Radio has democratized the medium of radio and made it accessible to virtually anyone. Thanks again for the format.
June 25, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Congrats guys! I saw your app at BlogWorld last year and it is just fantastic!
June 25, 2008 at 5:41 pm
[...] By now you must have learned of our good news. BlogTalkRadio announced today that we raised $4.6m in funding. Many of our friends around the blogosphere helped to spread the word and share in our happiness. [...]
June 25, 2008 at 6:42 pm
BTR is the New Age Communication platform. Folks want what they want when they want it. BTR DELIVERS!
June 25, 2008 at 10:32 pm
This is awesome news! I can’t wait for future developments at BTR. Thank you Alan for creating this platform for all of us to express ourselves.
June 26, 2008 at 4:25 am
Congratulations on the merger. Can’t wait to evolve with you.
June 26, 2008 at 4:37 am
[...] have secured $4.6 million in Series A funding, which sparked a piece in the Bits blog, and an announcement post in the official blog of course: We simply couldn’t be more excited about how this company is [...]
August 4, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Love the easy-call and-go, pod casting. Congrats!
Isobella Jade