• by Ray Schultz , April 25, 2023

HearstLab, a Hearst Corp. arm that invests in women-led technology startups, has led a seed round that raised $2.25 million for Barometer, a platform that helps brands determine podcast content suitability for advertising. 

The round was also led by BDMI, the Bertelsmann unit that stages digital media startups, according to an announcement in Inside Radio.

Barometer joins over 50 female-founded companies in the HearstLab portfolio.

Barometer helps advertisers align with the perfect podcasts for their ad campaigns, HearstLab says. Its AI combines topic modeling, tonal analysis, and sentiment analysis to help advertisers understand issues and their potential contentiousness across the podcast inventory, it adds.

The Barometer team is using “advanced AI to gather and present a truly holistic view of a particular podcast’s risks and associations,” says Eve Burton, Hearst executive vice presideent and HearstLab chairwoman, according to Inside Radio.