Chicago-based HearHere Radio Inc., the company behind Rivet Radio--an app that lets users decide how they consume audio news--announced it has raised $1.7M to-date in Convertible Promissory Notes.
Its investors include The Associated Press, A.H. Belo Management Services, Whittier Ventures, Ringleader Ventures, along with Chicago venture capitalist Steve Miller.
Rivet Radio is a 22-hour a day news company the produces local Chicago, national and global news. The iOS and Android app allows listeners to fast forward, rewind, and skip ahead to the news they are interested in. Rivet has roughly 30 employees in its Chicago newsroom producing stories that range from 30 to 90 seconds and cover politics, crime, sports, weather, and other topics.
“Our team is proud to be funded by this trusted group of investors,” CEO John MacLeod said in a news release. “Not only are we using these funds to bring smart audio news to more people, we’re working diligently to optimize proprietary technology that better understands listeners’ interests and delivers them exactly the news they care about.”
Currently, Chicago is its only market with local news. Rivet Radio partners with the Associated Press, the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ to create content, and the company expects to partner with news organizations in other cities to eventually expand its local news coverage.
The future for Rivet Radio is to get the news service inside the infotainment unit of cars, giving drivers an alternative to am/fm and satellite news radio, the company told Chicago Inno in June. Rivet also noted that the app has been downloaded more than 100,000 times since it hit the app store in December 2013.
Image via Rivet Radio
