Castbox ( zh, 鑄造箱) is a Hong Kong-based
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...
company. The company both hosts and produces its own podcasts.
Founding
Castbox was founded in 2016 by company CEO Renee Wang in
Beijing, China
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Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
.
It also has offices in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
and
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
.
App
Castbox is an app that distributes free podcasts. As of 2019, it has about one million podcasts available through it, including about fifty million podcast episodes.
It also has a premium platform.
In June 2019, Castbox integrated with
Waze
Waze (; he, ווייז, label=Hebrew), formerly FreeMap Israel, is a subsidiary company of Google that provides satellite navigation software on smartphones and other computers that support the Global Positioning System (GPS). In addition to ...
, allowing playback controls to pause, skip, or restart episodes.
Podcasts
In addition to its library of podcasts from other distributors, Castbox also produces its own shows. In 2018, Castbox partnered with
Heard Well
Heard Well is an American music label founded in 2015 by Connor Franta, Andrew Graham and Jeremy Wineberg. The label focuses exclusively on producing compilation albums featuring undiscovered artists as curated by digital influencers and celebriti ...
on the podcast series ''Heard Well Now'', which highlights early career musical artists. , Castbox produced 25 different original podcasts, with ''This Sounds Serious'' being released in 2019.
Funding
In 2017, the company raised $16 million,
and an additional $13.5 million in 2018.
References
{{Podcast distribution platforms
Chinese companies established in 2016
Podcasting companies
Mass media companies of Hong Kong
Companies based in Beijing