Mediaboss Marketing

Imagination Technologies, the British manufacturer of Pure digital radios, has boosted its control of Audioboo, in a complex deal with another Audioboo investor, UBC Media Group (LSE: UBC.L - news) .

Imagination and UBC have worked closely on digital radio projects in the past, and plan to use Audioboo to fuel interest in traditional broadcasting services and devices.

Simon Cole, UBCs chief executive, said: "It's an incredible tool. It's incredibly simple and does an incredibly simple job which nothing else does.

We have both got bodies with bruises on them from trying to develop digital radio over the last ten years [and established that] the space we are both interested in is the connected device.

The big move in media is from a space where you stuck a transmitter on a hill and broadcasted to people who listen or watch you, to one where it is two-way.

Hossein Yassaie, Imaginations chief executive, added: If you want people to contribute to radio, Audioboo is the most effective way of doing that. Its about making the broadcasting industry much more modern much closer to where the internet is [in terms of harnessing user-generated content].

Imagination, which already owned just over a third of Audioboo, has swapped its shares for a stake in UBC Media, making UBC Audioboos biggest investor with just over 40pc of the firm.

Under the terms of the deal, Imagination has also acquired UBC shares for cash, handing it a total of 9.8pc of the listed media business. Shares in UBC jumped more than 20pc to 2.29p in morning trading, pushing its market capitalisation to nearly 4.5m.

The agreement values Audioboo at around 1m - far short of other social networks. The firm, which allows users to share short audio files swiftly and easily, has 300,000 registered subscribers and is growing that figure at around 7pc a month.

Audioboo's founder, Mark Rock, and around five individual investors own the rest of the business.

See the original post:
Imagination Technologies ups investment at Audioboo