TargetSpot Acquires Ronning Lipset Radio

Our portfolio company TargetSpot, which is the leader in streaming audio monetization, has acquired Ronning Lipset Radio, the largest internet radio ad sales organization. This is a great marriage, technology plus sales, and makes TargetSpot the largest online radio ad network.

Many people don’t realize it, but online radio reaches over 50mm listeners per month in the US. There is a huge and loyal audience for online radio and it’s growing very quickly. And yet the online radio ad market is less than 1% of the total radio ad market. Like all advertising markets, the imbalance between audience size and ad revenue share will balance out over time and we are very bullish on the online radio ad market.

So we are very excited to have the largest online radio ad network, TargetSpot, in our portfolio. And we are very fortunate to have Eric and Andy, the founders of Ronning Lipset, join the TargetSpot team as head of our sales organization.

#VC & Technology

Comments (Archived):

  1. lazerow

    This is an awesome deal for all involved. I love it! Great technology + great sales = monster businesses. I’m a firm believer that most major winners in each space will need to grow solid sales organizations and not rely on others for monetization. It’s really the only way to control your own destiny. Congrats to all involved!

  2. Alan Levy

    Congrats to you and the team. We look forward to working with Targetspot and Ronning Lipset.Alan LevyFounder and CEOwww.blogtalkradio.com

    1. fredwilson

      And we look forward to working with you!

  3. phoneranger

    Fred take a look at Mundu.com. It’s a net radio app from India that works on my Symbian N95. It’s not Pandora as it directly scrapes web radio streams. And you know about WunderRadio I guess. That’s how net radio is going to grow..on mobile. The challenge to advertisers is that the audience is global and they aren’t ready to go there. When the big brands figure out how to “monetize” the radio listener in Durban, Dubai as well as Dublin (OH), net radio will take off.Slowly, painfully we are trying to do the same with TV on mobile.