Podcast app CastBox receives USD 12.8M for Series A
CastBox
Founder: Wang Xiaoyu
Founded in: 2016
Financing status: RMB 85 million (USD 12.8 million) for Series A financing in 2017
Podcast app, CastBox, received USD 12.8 million for Series A on October 23 to expand its products in the U.S.
CastBox is a podcast app that provides users with audio content on its podcast app, as well as customized recommendation services. CastBox’s recommendation engine considers users’ search history and their listening behavior, such as which episodes they listened to in their entirety and enjoyed enough to share on social media and which ones they closed quickly. Based on these, it aims to be “the YouTube of audio”.
Founded in 2016 in Beijing, with offices in Hong Kong and San Francisco CastBox claims that it has been downloaded more than eight million times, with 50 million episodes on its app. Recently, CastBox launched a new audio search feature that uses natural language processing to let listeners search for keywords and topics across its content library. Additionally, CastBox’s in-audio search supports English, and it is expanding into other languages.
This new financing round was led by Qiming Venture Partners and IDG Capital, with participation from SIG China, GSR Ventures and ZhenFund. The capital will be used to expand its businesses to an American market, and to invest in the research and development of audio technology. Meanwhile, it will solidify its app to provide its millions of users with a better user experience.
IT service platform Shenzhou Guangda receives USD 12M for Series A
Shenzhou Guangda
Founder: Gao Feng
Financing status: RMB 80 million (USD 12 million) for Series A financing in 2017
IT service platform, Shenzhou Guangda, received USD 12 million for Series A on October 23 to broaden its service range to more industries.
Shenzhou Guangda is an IT service platform that provides enterprises with IT services by integrating IT engineers across China onto its platform. The company first attracts IT engineers to register on its platform, as well as upload their information and complete their profiles. Its service categories including front-end development, the deployment of implementation, the back-end operation, maintenance, and so on. According to its data, 40% of the engineers on its platform are freelancers, and some are professional IT service providers. Enterprises can publish project requirements on its platform, which will match enterprises’ demands to engineers according to their profile, taking into account professional experience, soft skills, service time, service location and so on.
Founded in Beijing, the company has attracted more than 50,000 engineers. Its customers are mainly from IT industries, banks, supermarkets, hotels, and so on.
This Series A financing round was led by Junhe Capital. The company plans to use the funds to attract more partners across China, to enable its services to reach a larger range in this country. Meanwhile, it plans to expand its service categories to support more industries with IT services.
(Top photo from 58pic.com)
