Breaker
Breaker is a podcast listening and discovery application.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | investor investor investor investor investor investor investor investor | €0.0 | round |
| N/A | €0.0 | round | |
N/A | Acquisition | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Breaker was a social podcasting application founded in 2016 by Erik Berlin and Leah Culver. The company aimed to enhance the podcast listening experience by incorporating community and social interaction features, moving beyond the traditional feed-reader format of existing podcast apps. Breaker allowed users to like, comment on, and share podcast episodes, as well as discover new content through their friends' activities and curated recommendations. The app was available on both iOS and Android platforms, offering features like variable playback speeds, a sleep timer, and offline listening.
The founders brought significant technical expertise to the venture. Leah Culver, who served as CTO, is a seasoned software engineer and a co-author of the OAuth and oEmbed API specifications, with prior experience at Dropbox and as a founder of other startups like Pownce and Convore. Erik Berlin, the CEO, shared a passion for audio communication and reimagining how people interact with it. Breaker participated in the Y Combinator accelerator program in the winter of 2017. The platform operated on a freemium model, providing core features for free while offering a premium subscription, Breaker+, which included benefits like an ad-free experience, cloud-syncing across devices, and advanced playback features.
In a significant development, the Breaker team was acquired by Twitter in January 2021 for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was primarily a talent acquisition, with the Breaker team, including founders Leah Culver and Erik Berlin, joining Twitter to help develop its audio-based project, Twitter Spaces. Following the acquisition announcement, the Breaker app was initially set to shut down on January 15, 2021. However, the app and its technology were subsequently taken over by Maple Media, a Los Angeles-based company that acquires and operates mobile applications, ensuring the platform's continued availability for its user base.
Keywords: social podcasting, podcast discovery, Breaker app, Erik Berlin, Leah Culver, Twitter Spaces, Maple Media, podcast community, audio communication, Y Combinator, podcast player, iOS podcast app, Android podcast app, social audio, podcast sharing, content discovery, mobile application, digital audio, podcast subscription, tech acquisition