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Swedish music streaming giant is reportedly to acquire for more than $200 million, according to .

That move would be significant for a number of reasons. First off, it would mark Spotify鈥檚 first purchase of a content company. It would also represent Spotify鈥檚 鈥渇irst big move鈥� into podcasting, as Recode notes.

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New York-based , which produces popular shows like Reply All and Startup, raised $20 million in its Series B that closed between August and September 2017. Its pre-money valuation at that time was $55 million, according to its Crunchbase profile.

Spotify has been vocal as of late about its desire to move into podcasting. In October, Digital Media wrote about how the company had聽 its beta 鈥淪potify for Podcasters.鈥� According to Digital Media, that service would 鈥渁llow podcasters to easily link their RSS feeds to Spotify, allowing for easy upload through various podcast aggregators.鈥�

Last June, Crunchbase News wrote about how 2017 was a pivotal year for venture investment in the podcast industry. Below, we鈥檝e included an updated version of the chart which appeared in that article. In it, we display reported venture deal and dollar volume totals for rounds raised by companies in Crunchbase鈥檚 category.

While dollars raised dipped some in 2018, money raised was still significantly higher than years prior. Podcast startups brought in $109.6 million across 17 deals in 2018, according to Crunchbase data. That compared to $156.8 million raised over 27 deals in 2017. But it鈥檚 also way higher than $39.8 million in 2016.

2017鈥檚 dollar totals towered above those of the previous year. Of the roughly $157 million in reported funding for podcast startups, was raised by subscription platform in a Series C round. Patreon isn鈥檛 primarily a podcasting company, but it does offer podcast hosting to people who use the platform.

Gimlet鈥檚 last round, its previously mentioned double-barrel Series B, put its total funding at , which is less than many other venture-backed companies in the podcast industry. This being said, most of the best-capitalized companies (like with , or with in backing) are on the listening app and hosting end of the business. There just aren鈥檛 that many venture-backed podcast companies on the media production side of the coin, and Gimlet is the exception that proves the rule.

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