Audion

Audion Launches Audion360

~ jen

Audion, the leading digital audio and podcast monetisation technology company, launches Audion360: the world’s first platform to combine a podcast CMS with an artificial intelligence innovation and integrated advertising technology.

On-demand audio content has immense potential. However, the success of the format depends as much on the creativity as on the technology used by publishers. While most industry professionals are producing high-quality content that is attracting more and more listeners, few have found the ultimate platform to make audio a strategic and lucrative format.

After 18 months of R&D, Audio is launching Audion360 with the ambition to help publishers take the next step in the development and monetisation of their audio content. This new software is the first in the world to natively link three technological bricks that were previously worked on separately:

A professional podcast CMS (Content Management System)

A Text-To-Speech solution based on an artificial intelligence module (PrintAudio)

An integrated proprietary advertising platform, designed natively for the challenges of the format and open to the entire ecosystem.

The development of Audion360 is the result of long, iterative work with the European leaders in audio: radio groups, press publishers, podcast studios, Pure Players… In essence, it allows us to meet three fundamental needs:

  • Reduce operational friction and intermediaries by centralizing the execution of the entire strategy within a single interface, as opposed to 3 or even 4 software applications.
  • Ensure better distribution of editorial content by combining podcasts with text-to-speech. Objective: increase engagement with active users and improve conversion with new audiences.
    • Significantly increase advertising revenues with a platform that is natively designed for advertising and has exclusive features that guarantee a gain in the volume and value of advertising space.

    Only a few weeks after its launch in France, Audion360 welcomes renowned publishers such as Slate, the second most downloaded podcast brand in 2022 (according to ACPM), Engle, Futura, and Boursorama.

    Audion, already established in France and the UK, aims to become the European leader in the digital audio and monetisation market. After a second record-breaking fundraising round of €6m in 2022, the French company is continuing its development with the launch of Audion360, a 100% proprietary tool that demonstrates its technological know-how and it’s perfect understanding of a fast-growing market and is expected to reach nearly $24 billion by 2023.

    “We took the decision to develop Audion360 following multiple feedbacks we received from publishers who told us that they were having difficulty finding a viable model for podcasting. Our common observation is clear: advertising is central to the economic model and requires technologies and services dedicated to this subject.

    This is what Audion360 is all about: helping publishers to finally seize this opportunity by providing a platform reserved for professionals in the sector, packed with innovations and which, unlike our competitors, has been designed natively to increase the value derived from advertising. Functionalities related designed natively to increase the value derived from advertising. Functionalities related to editorial management or publishing have not evolved for several years, bring very limited added value to the business model and have now become a commodity. The real challenge publishers face is generating more advertising revenue and we are proud to be able to address this with our Audion360 technology” – Arthur Larrey, co-founder of Audio.

    “We are delighted to strengthen our collaboration with Audio by using their CMS for our productions. The flexibility of the tools at our disposal coupled with the expertise of the teams ensure that we can optimize our advertising revenues, allowing us to focus on editorial and production” – François Cusset – Founder & Head of business Engle.

    “After two years of collaboration around the marketing of our audio advertising inventory and nearly 300% growth, the premium CMS solution offered by Audion has become a very natural extension to our native audio catalogue management package. We are therefore very pleased to extend our partnership beyond the simple marketing of our space for a further 2 years. As part of the harmonisation of our tools, the complete solution is also deployed on the entire catalogue of our subsidiary Initial Studio, a documentary podcast production studio” – Nicolas Valverde – Director of advertising sales Slate France.

     

    Audion Launches In Italy, And Acquires Mentre

    ~ jen

    Audion, a leading European company in the digital audio market that through a proprietary technology allows advertisers to connect with their target audience, and helps publishers and content producers to monetise their premium audio content, enters the Italian market through the acquisition of Mentre, a company specialized in the conception, creation, distribution and promotion of audio content, in particular podcasts, founded by Georgia Giannattasio, Federica Deli and Michele Quaini.

    Founded 2018 by Arthur Larrey and Kamel El Hadef, Audion is the first end-to-end solution in Europe that from a single platform and through cutting-edge technology allows to operate and manage the entire process of production, distribution, promotion and monetisation of audio content providing measurable performances.

    A recent survey by Statista predicts that digital audio advertising expenditure in Italy with reach USD 157.70 million in 2023 and estimates an annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2027) of 4.85%, with a turnover of around USD 190 million by 2027. This audio trend is increasing worldwide: according to eMarketer in 2022, 74% of US Internet users, i.e., 222.7 million people, listened to digital audio. The number is expected to continue to rise this year, with listeners increasing 1.4% (to 225.8 million in 2023). eMarketer also predicted that by 2026, the number of digital audio listeners will exceed 234 million, an increase of about 1% year on year.

    In a clear scenario of strong growth, Audion was created with the goal of making the digital audio industry sustainable by giving publishers and premium content creators the ability to maximize the monetisation of their audio production; for brands, it offers an effective opportunity to connect with their audience while enabling consumers to enjoy a variety of quality content for free.

    Thanks to Audion’s proprietary solution, publishers, i.e., radio and media groups, can monetise with a single click the audience of all audio content produced in a customized and targeted way, regardless of the platform, either automatically through advertising or by subscription.

    In addition, they can host and distribute their audio content on all platforms (Spotify, Apple, Deezer, etc.), guarantee the fruition of podcasts produced (original, branded, and even catch-up radio) thanks to a proprietary player, create new content thanks to PrintAudio, Audion’s innovative AI-based (text-to-speech) proprietary technology solution, and monitor the listening consumption through precise KPIs.

    The expansion in Italy follows the financing round, completed at the end of 2022 amounting to €6 million, aimed at expanding the markets in which the French ad-tech operates as well as the technological development, the core center of the company along with its deep expertise in the sector of audio. The deal was led by Founders Future – which had already participated in the start up’s first round of €1.1m in 2019 along with Kima Ventures, Elevation Capital Partners, Financière Arbevel, and a number of business angels.

    The expansion in Italy follows the financing round, completed at the end of 2022 amounting to €6 million, aimed at expanding the markets in which the French ad-tech operates as well as the technological development, the core center of the company along with its deep expertise in the sector of audio. The deal was led by Founders Future – which had already participated in the start up’s first round of €1.1m in 2019 along with Kima Ventures, Elevation Capital Partners, Financière Arbevel, and a number of business angels.

    Through the acquisition of Mentre, a production and distribution excellence reality in the podcast and audio market in general, Audion brings its service to Italy and appoints a professional manager with several years of experience in various start-up ad-tech companies, digital monetisation and content production, Georgia Giannattasio, as Country Manager with the objective of developing the company in the Italian market.

    “In Italy, the digital audio advertising market has recorded two years of double-digit growth and the outlook continues to be positive. https://iab.it/iab-italia-pubblica-il-white-paper-digital-audio/ With Audion, we have developed the first end-to-end monetization model dedicated to digital audio with the aim of enhancing the content created by publishers on all digital audio platforms,” say Arthur Larrey and Kamel El Hadef, founders of Audion. “After France and Great Britain, we are happy to bring Audion to Italy, a market with a great potential, and to count on an expert in the market such as Georgia Giannattasio, Country Manager of Audion Italia.”

    Audion Raises €6 Million In Series A Funding

    ~ jen

    Audion, the French leader in digital audio and podcast monetization, has raised a six million euros Series A funding round from Founders Future, Elevation Capital Partners, Financière Arbevel and business angels. In a rapidly changing global contest, digital audio is the only media that maintains a strong growth in H1 2022.

    Audion is the industry leader in France thanks to an increase of turnover of almost 100% in 2022. The start-up, which enables publishers to broadcast advertisements on their audio content and convert their articles into podcasts, aims to become the European leader in the digital audio monetization market within three years and to open offices in three new countries. Audion is already present in the UK and France.

    Audion announces the first fundraising in the ByoB digital audio sector in France, with its historical investor Founders Future (Yuka, Lydia, Omi…), Elevation Capital Partners (Morning, Certideal, Plug-in Digital…) completed by a bonded debt funding with Arbevel Dette Privée PME. The start-up, which provides text-to-speech and digital audio monetization technologies, aims to help publishers create and capitalize on their audio content.

    Having raised €1.1m in seed funding in 2019, this new round should enable Audion to recruit around fifty people in the next twelve to eighteen months and open offices in three new European countries. The company, which already works with major media groups, will strengthen its offer and its presence with publishers, platforms (Spotify, Deezer, Soundcloud…), advertisers (Intel, BMW, McDonalds, Lidl, Ikea…),and media agencies (WPP, OMG, Dentsu…), to continue innovating and accompany this digital audio revolution.

    Founded in 2018, Audion works with more than a hundred companies – media, publishers, podcast producers… – and has seen a nearly 100% growth of its turnover in 2022. It is the only French company offering digital audio monetization technologies and is the leader in terms of revenue, number of clients and campaigns, and it also operates in dozens of countries.

    While the global advertising industry is being massively impacted, audio records the most significant growth (+50% according to the Observatorie de l’e-pub). Audion continues to grow with nearly +100% in both 2021 and 2022. The only French company in the BtoB audio market, Audion wants to use these funds to accelerate its growth and become European leader. Based in Paris and London, it currently has 25 employees. It’s latest technology PrintAudio, which converts text articles into podcasts and broadcasts them, has already been implemented on almost one billion web pages.

    Consumers listen more and more to digital audio – radio replay, non-linear radio, native podcast music streaming, web radio, text-to-speech, etc. 63% of internet users listen to online content every month (IAB Digital Audio Panorama, 2022), pushing brands and publishers to adapt their offer and their communications channels.

    But the growth of digital audio largely relies on advertising, as publishers and producers cannot create a large audio offer without monetization capabilities. As the only French player in the market, Audion is benefiting from this evolution in usage, which explains its constant growth despite a struggling advertising market.

    Voxnest Partners with Audion

    ~ jen

    Podcast technology company Voxnest and Audion, an audio advertising technology company based in France, revealed their new partnership today. The collaboration gives podcasts in the Voxnest network access to high quality audio ads via Audion’s advertising partners.

    As Voxnest’s network of publishers and podcasts continues to grow in Europe, they sought out an advertising partner that could deliver ads to the shows utilizing their dynamic ad insertion technology. The clear choice was Audion, as they continue to pave the way for audio advertising in Europe.

    “We offer a unique product to communicate more effectively in this medium,” said Arthur Larrey, Cofounder of Audion. “From radio podcasts and professional media to independent podcast producers, it’s now possible to reach millions of active podcast listeners all over Europe thanks to our technologies and services.”

    Both companies focus on dynamic ad insertion, an even newer concept in the podcast advertising world. As the industry begins to recognize the benefits of this delivery mechanism – advertisers can keep their ads relevant and publishers can monetize their entire catalog – Voxnest and Audion want to be at the forefront of the conversation.

    “While advertisers in the U.S. have been harnessing the power of programmatic ads on podcasts for some time, we’re now starting to see a significant amount of growth in Europe,” said Francesco Baschieri, President of Voxnest. “As we focus our efforts on this market’s rise, it’s been valuable to find a partner that not only has existing relationships with well-known brands in Europe, but is actively educating the market on the value of investing in this type of advertising on podcasts.”