If someone told you that you could get all your favorite blogs (in fact, your entire RSS feed) read to you while you go through your day, what would you say?
“Sign me up?”
“Black magic?”
The folks of SingelTel Innov8, a corporate venture arm of one of the biggest Telco’s in Asia who recently launched a seed fund in Australia, would say “Here, have $250,000 and make this thing great,” and that’s just what they did.
121cast, a company that launched SoundGecko out of Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, has just raised an inaugural seed round. The product grabs your favorite blogs, or really any text content that is available online, and reads back the material in audio form.
In the future, the goal is to be able to have an entirely personalized feed, including news, weather, traffic, calendar, social network updates, and music. Complete control.
As of the public launch, the website had 24,000 users and 2,000 listens per day. That’s grown to 35,500 users and 2,500 listens a day, with new features like converting PDFs, additional voice options, and a listening window.
It’s available on iOS and Windows Phone, with Android in the works.
According to the company, the funding will go toward building out the team and accelerate product development, with eyes on Asia-Pacific expansion.