Jelli to be acquired by the largest audio company in America, iHeartMedia

Today is a very special day for Jelli and all of our team. We will be joining forces with iHeartMedia, the largest audio company in America.

We announced today that Jelli will be acquired by iHeartMedia, in a merger intended to be closed before year-end. iHeartMedia has been a strategic partner for years, and a strategic investor, and together we have been on a mission to transform how audio advertising is bought and sold in this era of Google and Facebook. As our companies discussed what is next with audio, and all that is possible with the medium, it became clear to us both that we could move faster and do more if we combined our teams and platforms.

I could not be more humbled by this opportunity. When Jateen and I started Jelli ten years ago, we saw the potential for bringing the power of a cloud platform to a medium as rich and vibrant as radio and audio. Music is core to our lives and radio has touched us all, yet we thought it could be improved.

What could you do if you reinvented the radio through the power of the web? How would it evolve? Cloud platforms, APIs... a live medium becoming real-time, programmable and open.

Today, Jelli's technology is used by over 2,300 radio stations representing over 60% listener share of all radio listening in the US. Every week we serve audio that is heard by hundreds of millions of people in all major cities nationwide.

The Merger is a great outcome for our shareholders and the culmination of a lot of blood, sweat and tears by the team and our major investors. Kevin Talbot from Relay Ventures, Christine Herron from Intel Capital, Chris Fralic from First Round Capital and Kent Goldman helped us on this journey, and we would not have succeeded without their complete faith in our potential. There are so many people who contributed to Jelli to achieve this major milestone. We could not be more thankful to our customers, partners, investors, advisors and our team for banding together to change radio forever.

One of our core values is "Write the Next Chapter," and all Jellies, past and present, have written a key part of our story. Now our team can make an even bigger impact, and our next chapter is going to be very exciting.

Audio is very hot, and it is undergoing a major burst of growth and innovation. iHeartMedia is the largest platform in terms of listeners, listener hours and engagement - and almost all of that listening is free and supported by audio advertising. iHeartMedia serves hundreds of billions of ads a year and is by far the largest company in audio advertising. iHeartMedia is the only major audio company developing the future of audio advertising across all ways listeners consume it, from radio, streaming, podcasting to voice.

As we look to the future of music, audio and podcasting, I cannot think of a better company to help us achieve our original vision.

This is huge for Jelli, iHeartMedia and the entire audio industry. It is awesome that we are going to play a major role in the next chapter of industry transformation. Gimme my radio!

Rock on!

Mike

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