Genesis Investments invests $150k in Ukrainian podcast hosting platform Elision

Startup Elision, which develops a platform for the distribution and monetization of podcasts, raised $150,000. The investor was a venture capital fund Genesis Investments.

This is the first investment in Elision. The money will be used for further product development and marketing of the company.

About Elision

Elision is a podcasting platform for people who are interested in audio content. The startup was founded by Ukrainian Viktor Pavluchynskyi in November 2019. Now the team consists of 15 people.

The product allows podcasters to upload their content and earn money from it, and listeners can get unlimited access to all podcasts available on the Internet. The platform’s archive now contains over 30 million podcast episodes.

On Elision, you can not only listen to but also visualize the content. For this purpose, the developers created RichAudio, a format of enriched audio, where podcasters can provide listeners with any additional visual materials: text, photos, illustrations, weblinks. Currently, the platform already has 500 exclusive episodes with RichAudio.

The target audience of the platform is people who do not yet listen to or record podcasts, for example, YouTube or Instagram bloggers and their subscribers. Elision’s goal is to increase the number of independent podcasters, give them a chance to compete with big labels, and earn on their content.

Potential and business model

According to Viktor Pavluchynskyi, the founder and CEO of Elision, the industry has been growing by 50% per year in the last few years and is expected to grow tenfold by 2026.

Beta version of the application on Google Play and App Store has already been downloaded by over 1.5 thousand users. According to the expectations of the startup founders, the product will have 5,000 downloads by the end of April.

The Elision team is currently working on exclusive content. The full launch of the product on the U.S. market is planned for May 1. Podcasts will be available free of charge with advertising from startup partners, or for $7 a month with an ad-free subscription. A discounted price of 100 UAH will be available for Ukrainians.

The founders of Elision plan to reach profitability in six months and develop content available on the platform.

“For us, Genesis is, first of all, a strategic partner, which has great expertise in creating products. Thanks to their advice and support, we have been able to avoid more than one mistake. For example, we were advised not to make our own payment system in the application, but to use a third-party service. This saved us about a month of development,” says Pavluchynskyi.

“Viktor and his partners are a very passionate and enthusiastic team with experience in creating successful projects in Ukraine. Secondly, we are considering the market. Podcasting is one of the fastest-growing segments in media. Therefore, we are confident that the project will become one of the world leaders on this market”, – says Vitaliy Laptenok, CEO of Genesis Investments.