Buko Ventures is excited to announce our investment in Podcast Network Asia, the leading podcast producer in the Philippines now offering powerful podcast management technology for podcast creators.

Podcast Network Asia’s founder Ron Baetiong is well-known in the Philippines start-up sector as the long-time creator and host of Hustleshare, which profiles startup founders in the Philippines and is today the most popular business podcast in the Philippines. It was this experience that inspired Ron to build a podcasting company for the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

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Today, PNA produces over 240 podcast shows, accounting for 20% of the largest 200 largest podcasts in the Philippines, and 8% of the largest podcasts in Indonesia. Based on Hustleshare’s success, PNA has a playbook they can share with new podcast creators that join their network to help them scale their content and audience. Altogether, PNA podcasts have produced over 7,500 episodes, over 400,000 minutes of content, and over 30 million total listens.

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They have popular shows across a wide range of genres from business stories, to dating advice to mental health and many more. You can see a full list of their podcasts here.

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Recently, PNA also launched Podmetrics, a podcast management software product to enable anyone to build and manage their own podcast. This provides PNA a scalable business model with strong recurring earnings and enables PNA to help even more podcast creators. Podmetrics provides podcast content creators with analytics, marketing tools, and customer engagement features to help maximize the success of a podcast.

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In many ways the Philippines is the perfect podcast market with a large and young population that are heavy content consumers. Manila is also one of the most densely populated and congested urban areas in the world with many commuters spending over 2 hours in traffic each way to go to work. Podcasts offer the perfect form of entertainment and education for Filipino commuters. Additionally, with over 7,000 islands and a widely dispersed population, podcasts offer a compelling way for provincial Filipinos to connect and enjoy a shared cultural experience across the country (and also around the world for overseas Filipinos). Similar dynamics exist in Indonesia and around the region and Podcast Network Asia is well-positioned to build the leading technology to power the podcasting industry across Asia.

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Ron is a leading member of the startup community in the Philippines and has built a number of startups in the past including a chatbot automation company and an app for parties and events. His network and experience across the Philippines start-up ecosystem are impressive and at Buko Ventures we’re excited to continue working closely with Ron to grow the Philippines tech sector.

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If you are interested in launching your own podcast, Podcast Network Asia and their Podmachine technology can help you get started and become the podcast host you always wanted to be.

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