HipChat Founders Launch Swoot, a Social Podcast App
This article is at least a year old
San Francisco CA, USA—Swoot, a podcast app that makes podcast listening and discovery as easy as following friends, officially launched yesterday. Co-founders Pete Curley and Garret Heaton previously founded HipChat, which sold to Atlassian in 2012 and was then acquired by Slack in 2019.
“We are incredibly excited to introduce Swoot to the world,” said Curley. “Podcasts are possibly the most important medium of our time, but existing podcast apps are a lonely and lacking experience. We built Swoot so people can connect with their friends, discover shows together, and never miss awesome podcasts again. Our mission is to give podcasts the home they deserve.”
Perfect for new listeners and long-time podcast fans, Swoot stands out from other podcast apps with its social networking elements and recommendation feature, which allows users to suggest podcasts to friends.
The company has already seen promising results from its beta test. An impressive 25 percent of podcasts played by users are influenced by friends, demonstrating that listening in Swoot exposes shows to larger audiences.
“We’ve already seen a few episodes go viral across the entire network, showing the power of social networking for podcasts and enabling the best content to reach a huge audience,” said Curley. “This is unthinkable with today’s podcast ecosystem.”
To date, Swoot has raised a $3 million seed funding round led by True Ventures.
“I’ve known and worked closely with Pete and Garret since 2006,” said Jon Callaghan, co-founder of True Ventures. “They are two of the sharpest product designers I’ve been lucky enough to work with, and, with Swoot, they have turned their talents to the burgeoning yet fundamentally flawed podcasting experience. Swoot will change how creators and listeners alike experience podcast media, and their product will unlock enormous creativity for all.”
About Swoot
Swoot is building the home that podcasts deserve, a place where people connect with their friends and discover shows they’ll love. The company was founded in 2016 and raised a seed round from True Ventures. The Swoot app is available for download on iOS in the App Store and Android in the Android Play Store. Visit www.swoot.com for more information.
About True Ventures
Founded in 2005, True Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in early stage technology startups. With more than $2 billion under management, True provides seed and Series A funding to the most talented entrepreneurs in today’s fastest growing markets. The firm maintains a strong community that supports founders and their teams, helping True companies achieve higher levels of success and impact. To date, True has helped more than 250 companies launch and scale their businesses, creating over 10,000 jobs worldwide. The firm was awarded 2018 Venture Firm of the Year by the National Venture Capital Association. To learn more, visit www.trueventures.com.
This is a press release which we link to from Podnews, our daily newsletter about podcasting and on-demand. We may make small edits for editorial reasons.