Media and entertainment group Global has acquired Captivate, the podcast hosting, analytics and monetisation platform. Captivate hosts over 14,000 podcasts and has developed a range of features to help podcasters with distribution, first-party attribution and podcast promotion, helping independent podcast creators to harness, grow and monetise their audio influence.

The Captivate platform, founded by Mark Asquith and Kieran McKeefery, who will be staying with the business, will be integrated into Global’s audio entertainment offering, Global Player, and podcast creators will be able to scale up monetisation opportunities with Global’s proprietary digital ad platform DAX (Digital Ad Exchange).

“We’re delighted to be acquiring Captivate, a best in class self-serve platform for podcast creators, with access to market leading analytics and monetization,” said Global Group CEO, Stephen Miron. “This acquisition will enable us to support all talent in the podcast community from the very largest to emerging new talent. We believe that this platform, combined with the massive scale and reach of Global Player and DAX will give all our podcast partners an unrivalled advantage.” 

The acquisition of Captivate follows Global’s recent acquisition of US-based next-generation digital audio content and technology start-up, Remixd. Now integrated into Global Player and DAX, Remixd technology enables digital publishers to convert online written articles into audio content with targeted ads inserted.