Clip Interactive raising Series B as it launches nationally

BOULDER – Clip Interactive has raised about $644,000 of a much larger Series B funding round as the company rolls out its interactive radio platform nationwide.

Clip’s platform allows users on web and mobile devices to interact with ads and offers on partner radio stations, as well as to “browse” what both partner and non-partner stations are playing currently or what they have played over a recent time period – all without actually having to be listening to a station.

The funding raised was disclosed this week in a regulatory filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Chief executive Michael Lawless declined to disclose the size of the Series B round since it is ongoing other than to say that the company is looking to raise more than $5 million.

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Founded in 2012 by Jeffrey Thramann, Clip has 120 partner radio stations activated on its platform through several broadcast partners nationwide.

Anticipated for early this year, Lawless said the national launch took on a life of its own late last year as interested broadcast companies began coming online with the platform. Clip first deployed its technology with a radio group in Portland, Ore., in 2013 as a pilot program, and has been gradually adding partners since.

“As we went through that process, other broadcasters started to take note,” Lawless said.

By the end of this year, Lawless said he expects to have 500 partner radio stations activated. The company expects to be monitoring another 800 to 900 non-partner stations over the airwaves to allow Clip users to browse those stations.

Partner stations work with Clip in two main ways. They promote interactive radio on the air, and their sales people upsell interactive capabilities to advertisers, from which the stations and Clip share in the revenue. For advertisers, the interactivity means that while they might run a contest through a radio station to give one listener, say, a $500 teeth-whitening prize, that advertiser also gains sales leads from the other people who entered the contest and are interested in their product.

While Clip is hoping to land partner stations in the Colorado market this year, Lawless said the company is already in 25 of the top 100 radio markets in the country, a number the company aims to more than double by the end of the year.

Clip, which raised a $6 million Series A round of funding last year, doesn’t disclose revenue. But Lawless said the growth will be aggressive this year. He anticipates adding at least five to 10 new employees by the end of 2015.