Podcast recording platform Riverside announced Monday that it has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Zeev Ventures with participation from Seven Seven Six and angel investor Sam Lessin. The company hopes to use the funding to grow its team and build solutions for the podcast and content creation space.
The startup, founded in 2020, has raised $80 million in funding to date, with Zeev and Seven Seven Six participating in multiple rounds. The startup also counts Casey Neistat, Marques Brownlee, Guy Raz, Elad Gil, and Alexander Klöpping as angel investors.
The company's $35 million Series B funding was raised in 2022. Riverside founder Nadav Keeson told TechCrunch that the Series C raised the company's valuation, but declined to provide exact numbers.
Image credit: Riverside
Alexis Ohanian, founder and general partner of Seven Seven Six, said he was personally looking for a solution to help record podcasts. He said that as an early investor and product designer, discovering Riverside was a “game realization” moment. He said the company has a good understanding of creators' pain points.
“Many AI tools are point solutions, requiring creators to deliver in stages and hack their way to a comprehensive podcasting platform. Riverside is truly all-in-one and incredibly easy to use.” he told TechCrunch via email.
Riverside started as a podcast recording platform with participants from different locations during the pandemic. The tool focuses on features such as recording individual audio tracks with automatic backups, so recording will not be interrupted if there is a glitch in one participant's feed.
Last year, the company released iOS and iPad apps to better support on-the-go podcast recording in HD resolution. We also debuted a new design that brings your recording, editing, and sharing tools together in one place.
The new editor also includes features such as AI transcription with support for over 100 languages, separate audio and video tracks, and automatic clip creation of memorable moments to share on social platforms. The company recently introduced an AI-powered editing feature that replaces or deletes text in a transcript and reflects it in the video or audio recording.
According to the company, these tools have reduced editing time by 80% for companies and creators like Google, Microsoft, and Marvel. Keyson said creators logged more than 100 million minutes on the platform in 2024 alone.
Riverside started with recording tools for podcast recording, but has also expanded its tools for live streaming, including support for multiple stream destinations and custom branding.
Earlier this year, Spotify expanded its partnership with Riverside to provide creators with podcast recording and editing tools within their browser window.
Riverside competes with other remote podcast recording tools such as Podcastle and Zencastr. Camo is another app that started out as a tool to improve the quality of your webcam. Then we invested in live streaming tools.
Keyson said Riverside wants to be a one-stop shop for all things video, not just podcast recordings. He said companies are already using the platform to create video interviews, thought leadership content and internal training materials.
Seven Seven Six's Ohanian agrees with this vision and feels Riverside is a great tool to help creators meet the growing demand for video content.
“The product uses a suite of tools for creating audio and video content, including studio-quality recording, full HD live streaming, AI-powered editing solutions, and automatic content reuse,” he told TechCrunch. “We handle every step of the creative process.” Email.
“People still find video editing to be a very difficult task, so we want to make it really easy with tools.To improve this workflow, we also have AI capabilities. We’re going to invest in it,” Keyson said.
The founders said the company has approximately 160-170 employees and the funding will be used primarily to hire AI and full-stack engineers. The company is not currently profitable, but aims to reach that goal by the end of 2026.