PodX Pays $30M for Lemonada // Marks Entry into US Podcast Market
May 16, 2025 by Chris Erwin
RockWater Roundup
M&A analysis of the creator economy to make you a better operator and investor.
Today we discuss PodX’s acquisition of Lemonada, a podcast network and creative studio with a goal to “make life suck less”. We analyze the deal details, strategic rationale, why PodX is expanding into the US, and growth of capital flows into podcasting.
Let’s break it down…
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–TARGET: Lemonada–
Overview
- Podcast network and creative studio
- 50 original podcasts and 40 partner shows
- Goal = “Make life suck less”
- Founded in 2019 by Jessica Cordova Kramer (CEO) and Stephanie Wittels Wachs (CCO)
- 79% female audience, 72% married or partnered
- 56 associated members on LinkedIn
- HQ’d in Minneapolis
Company Highlights
- Experienced “skyrocketing” revenue and audience growth in 2024
- Podcasts include Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Fail Better with David Duchovny, and Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan Markle
- Produced multiple #1 Apple Podcasts charting shows including Wiser Than Me (29 days at #1 overall), Blind Plea and received Gracie and Webby Awards for acclaimed series like In the Bubble, Add to Cart, and BEING Trans
Business Lines
- Sells advertisements on podcasts and partner show content
- Promotes a book club, in co-development partnership with Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster
- Has a D2C shop selling clothes, bags, and hats
Origin Story
- Both founders lost their brothers due to overdoses and connected over the question of “could we have done anything differently to save our brothers?”
- From there, the first Lemonada podcast was born, Webby Award-winning Last Day, where Wittels Wachs interviews folks about the last day of someone’s life
Capital Markets History
- May 2025 – Acquired by PodX
- Jan 2022 – $8M Series A by BDMI, Blue Collective, Flourish, Greycroft
- Feb 2021 – $1M seed by Blue Collective, Imaginable Future Services
- Jun 2020 – $1.5M pre-seed by Blue Collective
- Total funds raised: $10.5M
–BUYER: PodX–
Overview
- Global podcast investment and production studio
- Goal = be leading international audio content group
- Offers financing, biz dev, globalization, and commercialisation services to its portfolio
- Has podcast brands dedicated to different audience segments, interests, and geographies
- Founded in 2021 by Patrick Svensk (CEO), Staffan Rosell, Fredrik Said
- HQ’d in Stockholm, Sweden
- 15 associated members on LinkedIn
- 10 audio companies under the PodX umbrella
Capital Markets History
- 10 total acquisitions per Pitchbook
- Main shareholder of PodX is a Swedish family-owned investment group, Qarlbo AB
- QAB is also main investor behind Pophouse, which acquires IP rights for exploitation (KISS, ABBA, Avicii, Cyndi Lauper, Swedish House Mafia)
| Company Name | Deal Date | Deal Size | Description |
| Lemonada | May-25 | $30M | Podcast network and creative studio |
| Oronda Studio | Jan-25 | N/A | Produces both audio and video content |
| Perfect Day Media | Sep-24 | N/A | Swedish podcast production and distribution |
| Platform Media | May-24 | N/A | Produces, distributes, and monetizes content that originates as video podcasts |
| Listen Entertainment | May-23 | $4.85M | UK podcast firm working with BBC, Netflix, Wondery, and other major clients |
| Suomen Podcast Media | Mar-23 | N/A | Leading Finnish podcast company |
| Filt | Feb-23 | N/A | Covers culture, science, tech, drama, and entertainment |
| Posta Media | Dec-22 | N/A | Produces reality, docs, and fiction in Spanish |
| Goldhawk Productions | Oct-22 | N/A | Specializes in audio fiction |
| Nouvelles Écoutes | Sep-22 | N/A | French podcast studio with in-house ad agency |
–DEAL DETAILS–
Overview
- Announced 5.6.25
- Bloomberg valued deal at $30M
- Deal reportedly was for a “majority stake”
Post Deal Ops
- Lemonada’s management team will stay post acquisition
- Lemonada to retain the brand
Strategic Rationale
- PodX’s first entry to US market, builds upon existing expansion in Europe and Latam, in support of vision to become global audio group
- PodX acquires celebrity-led podcasts and partner shows to unlock new global audiences and shift toward talent-driven IP
- Lemonada to continue growing but now on a global scale with via PodX
- Lemonada brings over authentic storytelling approach to PodX portfolio companies
–WHAT ELSE I FIND INTERESTING–
- PodX’s official entry into the US podcast market. PodX has long positioned itself to become a global leader in audio storytelling. Its initial acquisitions focused on Europe and Latin America, where entry valuations were more attractive and competition was lower. While the US podcast market has always been appealing due to its scale and maturity, sellers’ high price expectations previously limited PodX’s activity in the region. With the gap closing between seller expectations and buyside mandates, PodX seized on the opportunity to acquire Lemonada and establish its US-based presence. We estimate that a meaningful portion of the deal consideration was in stock, making the transaction more attractive to PodX leadership. With this move, PodX has secured a foothold in the US market, which accounts for over half of global podcast ad revenue. We expect more US based deals to follow.
- Lemonada indexes heavily into celebrity-led podcasts and shows. Lemonada marks a new podcast M&A angle towards talent-driven IP. The deal gives PodX access to a roster of US creators and Hollywood talent with global appeal. By plugging Lemonada’s shows into PodX’s global distribution network, the new parent co can help unlock new audiences, grow ad and licensing revenue, and further position Lemonada as a premier destination for top-tier talent looking to scale their global reach.
- Podcasting is seeing a resurgence. Just last week we wrote about this in our analysis of Moburst’s acquisition of Kitcaster. Podcast ad spending worldwide is projected to hit $4.5 billion by 2025, and Hernan Lopez of Owl & Co estimates the size of the global podcast economy at $7.3B. Recent quarterly reports also show that audio platforms are experiencing growing podcast revenues. For example, iHeartMedia announced that their podcast revenue was up 28% YoY, SiriusXM added 149K subscribers at the end of 2024, and YouTube became the largest podcast platform in the world with more than 1B people a month viewing podcast content. For Spotify, the number of users watching video podcasts has grown by 40% YoY, and the number of podcasters publishing videos on Spotify has grown 70% YoY. Podcasting is becoming more mainstream and reaching more audiences, and in turn driving more ad sales and overall podcast revenues, making this media class particularly appealing to investors. Our analysis of the podcast market data from last week explains why this is important:
“The market data continues to highlight audio as a critical medium for brand awareness and consumer connection, which helps explain why we’re seeing increasing podcast M&A and capital flows – revenue follows consumer behavior, and capital follows revenue!”
- Re-sharing this from our newsletter deal analysis last week → Podcast M&A and capital flows have been strong in 2025. I talked about this in my analysis of TCG’s $40M investment into Audiochuck and Fox’s acquisition of Red Seat Ventures. And this activity builds upon 2024’s landmark acquisition of Veritone ONE and Oxford Road by Insignia Capital for $100M+, and Acast’s acquisition of Wonder Media. Just this week, PodX bought Lemonada for $30M, which we’ll likely write about soon. Further, newsletter Soundbite reports that QCODE just raised more funding, and that Goalhanger is in talks with TCG for a fundraise. That’s a lot of deal activity! Based on our audio client M&A work and many more insider industry conversations, our team expects capital flows into podcasting to remain strong through the rest of the year.
I’m the founder of RockWater Industries. We do M&A and strategy advisory for creator economy and digital agencies. From buy / sell-side M&A and fundraising, to consumer research and go-to-market planning.
DM me on LinkedIn or email me chris @ wearerockwater dot com
