Noa, the Irish media group that curates playlists of audio versions of news articles, has secured a €200,000 investment from global edtech platform Go1.
The deal will see Noa’s narrated articles from publishers such as the Financial Times and the Washington Post become available to Go1’s subscriber base of more than 3.5 million “learners” who are undertaking career education and training courses.
Australia-founded Go1 recently acquired “unicorn” status, meaning it is a private company with a valuation of more than $1 billion.
Noa chief executive and co-founder Gareth Hickey said this would accelerate its growth by reaching a "targeted audience of learners, who can now complement their Go1 courses with premium audio-journalism from the world's best publishers".
Noa, an acronym for News Over Audio, is a consumer subscription service, with both a free and a paid tier. It produces and curates audio versions of written opinion, feature and long-form journalism from leading news publishers, with the articles delivered by a team of narrators from the US, Britain and Ireland.
Since its establishment in 2017, it has partnered with publishers including The Irish Times, the New York Times, the Economist and Business Insider.
Young audience
The Dublin-headquartered company, which employs 25 people, reaches primarily a young global audience, with two-thirds of its listeners under the age of 45. The median listening time per session is 45 minutes.
The alliance with Noa would help Go1 "provide new ways for our learners to access premium journalism", its co-founder and chief executive Andrew Barnes said.
“Our investment is part of a broader plan to help accelerate the growth of organisations with a similar ethos such as Noa.”
Six-year-old Go1 offers more than 150,000 courses to its customers and has raised more than $280 million in funding from investors to date.
