TuneIn, the internet radio platform, recently announced that they have raised $25 million from several investors, including Google. TuneIn reached 1 billion hours of listening in April, making it the number one source of live audio content on the internet.
CEO John Donham told TechCrunch that the money will be used to invest in more content for TuneIn. TuneIn currently offers about 80,000 AM, FM, HD, and online radio stations from every continent (yes, even Antarctica) as well as over 2 million on-demand programs to its users. They plan to offer more services to the stations themselves to entice more to sign up.
TuneIn faces stiff competition from another internet radio platform, iHeartRadio, which is owned by Clear Channel Broadcasting Inc. Clear Channel owns a majority of radio stations in most major American cities, so their share of stations in terms of numbers may be less, but they can easily reach a huge amount of people. Clear Channel is unlikely to allow TuneIn access to the stations it owns, because that would be detrimental to their own iHeartRadio.
TuneIn says it has 40 million active users all over the world, and it is experiencing huge amounts of growth due to its availability as a free app for mobile users over the last few years. And for 80,000 different stations, more growth is surely ahead.