PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwired - May 29, 2013) - TuneIn , the leading service for listening to the world's radio, today announced that it raised a $25 million round of funding led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) , with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital , Google Ventures and General Catalyst Partners . TuneIn also announced that it surpassed one billion listening hours in the first four months of 2013, with more than 227 million listening sessions in the month of March alone, solidifying the company's position as the world's number-one service for listening to live, online radio.
"This investment gives us the capital to accelerate the development of new technologies and support our ongoing expansion," said John Donham, CEO of TuneIn. "We will use this funding to leverage our momentum, with a particular focus on growing ad revenues for our broadcast partners."
TuneIn surpassed one billion listening hours between January and April of 2013, reinforcing the company's status as the top live, online radio service in the world, with well over 40 million monthly active listeners across 230 countries and territories. The company also announced that it had 227 million listening sessions of 60 seconds or longer in the month of March.
"TuneIn's rapid growth, superior business model, and ubiquitous product make for a compelling investment," noted Jules Maltz, General Partner at IVP, who will join the TuneIn board of directors. "John Donham is an exceptional leader with a vision to fundamentally transform the multi-billion dollar radio industry."
This announcement comes on the heels of TuneIn Live , a major platform redesign that provides a personalized way to find relevant radio stations, songs and live events from all over the world. Since its launch in March 2013, TuneIn Live has spurred a large uptick in listener engagement. The company released TuneIn Live for its popular iPhone apps last week, making the updated interface available across all Android and iOS devices and web browsers at www.tunein.com .
In addition to new product developments, TuneIn is also investing in building its internal capabilities, including strategic, senior hires. Most recently, TuneIn selected Axel Martinez as its chief financial officer, overseeing the strategic business investments this round of funding allows. Axel Martinez, formerly the assistant treasurer -- head of capital markets at Google Inc., holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics and political science from Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
About TuneIn TuneIn lets people listen to the world's music, sports, talk, and news from wherever they are, with more than 70,000 AM, FM, HD, and Internet radio stations and more than two million on-demand programs streaming from every continent, available across 200 connected devices. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Existing investors include Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures, and General Catalyst Partners.
About Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) With $4 billion of committed capital, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is one of the premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms in the United States. The partnership is currently investing IVP XIV, a $1 billion later-stage fund focused on investments in rapidly growing technology and media companies. Founded in 1980, IVP has invested in over 300 companies, 94 of which have gone public. IVP is one of the top performing firms in the industry and has a 32-year IRR of 43.2%. IVP specializes in venture growth investments, industry rollups, founder liquidity transactions, and select public market investments. Since its inception, IVP investments include such notable companies as ArcSight (HPQ), Buddy Media (CRM), ComScore (SCOR), Concur Technologies (CNQR), Dropbox, Fleetmatics (FLTX), HomeAway (AWAY), Juniper Networks (JNPR), Kayak (KYAK), LegalZoom, LifeLock (LOCK), Marketo (MKTO), MobileIron, MySQL (ORCL), Netflix (NFLX), Omniture (ADBE), OneKingsLane, Polycom (PLCM), RetailMeNot, Seagate (STX), Shazam, Synchronoss (SNCR), Tivo (TIVO), Twitter, and Zynga (ZNGA). For more information, visit http://ivp.com or follow IVP on Twitter: @ivp.
About Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital helps founders turn imaginative ideas into enduring companies. As the "Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs," the Sequoia team has worked closely with legendary founders such as Steve Jobs of Apple, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner of Cisco, David Filo and Jerry Yang of Yahoo!, Max Levchin, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel of PayPal, Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, Steve Chen and Chad Hurley of YouTube, and Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn. Sequoia is now helping the next generation of innovators build the lasting companies of tomorrow.
About General Catalyst General Catalyst Partners is a venture capital firm that makes early stage and growth equity investments. General Catalyst Partners invests in exceptional entrepreneurs who are building the technology-based companies that will lead innovation and transform industries. Founded in 2000, General Catalyst Partners leverages its principals' extensive operational, business development and technological expertise to provide portfolio companies with a catalyst for success through business-building and partnership development assistance. General Catalyst has offices in Cambridge, MA and Palo Alto, CA. For more information, visit: http://www.generalcatalyst.com/ or https://twitter.com/gcvp .
Media Contacts: Lara Levin Allison+Partners for TuneIn Email Contact 415.277.4906 Siobhan Murphy TuneIn Email Contact 650.319.7112
