Audio adtech company Triton Digital has acquired podcast creation, management, and monetization platform Sounder. It is the latest and ultimate partnership between these two companies in a span of three and a half years.
“As part of Triton Digital, Sounder will continue to provide advanced contextual targeting solutions, brand suitability, and cutting-edge podcast promotional tools.” –Triton Digital
The announcement from Triton emphasizes Sounder’s best-in-class brand suitability solutions, and its “AI-powered podcast understanding.” Triton promises advertisers and agencies a more seamless, practical, data-driven advertising experience.
More specifically, Triton spells out three key benefits to advertisers:
- Best-in-Class Contextual Targeting: Sounder’s top-tier contextual targeting tools ensure advertiser alignment with relevant content, elevating campaign effectiveness. Triton Ad Platform will deliver a more robust targeting capability with scale, transparent reporting, and forecasting.
- Premium Brand Placement: Sounder’s brand-suitable solution is unmatched in the industry. Sounder offers brands peace of mind and ensures advertisers’ messages are placed in a suitable listening environment.
- AI-Powered Promotional Tools: Triton publishers will have access to Sounder’s AI promotional tools. The intersection of GenAI and large language models with Sounder’s natural language processing technology creates unparalleled promotional opportunities for the audio marketplace.
Sounder raised capital three years ago, securing seed financing of $1.8 million. That fundraising included Spotify and Google angel investors. (RAIN coverage HERE.) A few months later (October, 2021) Triton allied with Sunder, bringing Triton’s dynamic ad insertion technology to Sounder’s podcast platform (RAIN HERE).
A few months after that, Sounder brought in $2.15 million in a financing round led by Newark Venture Partners and Xoogler.co. (RAIN)
Sounder has also been on the acquiring end of dealmaking, grabbing AI-based recommendation platform Podnods in May, 2021. High profile partnerships have included Evergreen Podcasts (RAIN) and Magellan AI (RAIN).
“We are thrilled to welcome Sounder to the Triton Digital family,” said John Rosso, President and CEO of Triton Digital. “The Sounder team are visionaries in audio intelligence, and their technology adds an essential layer to our offerings. This acquisition empowers us to deliver more value to advertisers and publishers with highly targeted, contextually relevant, and brand-suitable audio advertising solutions. Looking ahead, we are excited to leverage our combined strengths to drive innovation and growth in the digital audio marketplace.”
“Becoming part of Triton Digital is a significant milestone for Sounder, giving us the ability to accelerate our growth and innovation while continuing to work across the entire podcast landscape,” said Kal Amin, CEO and co-founder of Sounder. “Our AI-powered content analysis enables Triton to bring unprecedented insights, targeting, and promotional capabilities to the audio marketplace.”