Gumball, an LA-based adtech platform, announced Tuesday that it raised $10 million in fresh financing. The raise, co-led by Union Square Ventures and Good Friends, brings Gumball’s total funding to date to $12 million.
Gumball was born out of the team behind Headgum, a podcasting network. The adtech platform specializes in “host-read” advertising, which is often credited as the vehicle that built the podcast medium in and of itself.
“The host-read ad is the most valuable and powerful asset in podcasting, providing authentic, intimate and endorsement-level messages natively within targeted content,” Marty Michael, CEO of Gumball, said in a statement.
Gumball delivered more than 15,000 host-read ads while in development, according to the company.
Host-read advertising is one of the few areas of digital marketing that’s been left untouched by tech or delivered at scale, according to Gumball. Typically, brands will reach out with ads and negotiate with podcasters individually. Then those podcasters relinquish their control to a larger network in order to optimize revenue.
“Despite being equally loved by brands, listeners and talent, the way campaigns are bought, planned, executed and tracked is antiquated,” Michael continued.
Gumball is on a mission to streamline and democratize this process. The platform enables brands to connect with multiple podcasters at once in order to identify and buy ad space. From there, the two entities can work together to plan, manage and track ad campaigns at scale. All this can be achieved in minutes, whereas legacy solutions can take up to several weeks, according to the company.
Following the latest raise, Gumball plans to expand the size of its 24-person team. The company told dot.LA that it plans to reach a total headcount of 30 by the end of the year. Meanwhile Gumball’s parent company, Headgum, is now hiring for seven roles across its teams.
Additional investors Craft Ventures, Vertical Venture Partners and Animal Capital participated in the raise, among others.
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