Expect to hear a lot more about Airtasker on the Kyle & Jackie O show in 2025 after the casual jobs marketplace inked a $5 million investment deal with radio company ARN Media (ASX: A1N).
It’s the second such investment by a media brand in the last fortnight, with Airtasker (ASX: ART) signing a similar $6 million media partnership with outdoor media business oOh!media Limited (ASX: OML) last week.
That gives the platform an $11 million marketing war chest to deploy over the next two years as it looks to grow with increased marketing.
It also follows on from UK TV station Channel Four taking 20% stake in Airtasker’s British arm for $6.5 million last year.
The oOh!media and ARN deals are on the same terms – access to $5m in ARN audio media inventory and $6m in oOh!media inventory in exchange, in both cases, for a 2-year $5m convertible note with a 5.8% coupon rate. At maturity, Airtasker has the option to convert the outstanding note and coupon into ordinary shares at a 10% discount to Airtasker’s 30-trading day volume-weighted average share price or repay the outstanding Note and coupon in cash.
oOh!media has 35,000 sites across Australia including billboards, street furniture, airports, office towers and retail centres. ARN has a network of 58 radio stations including KIIS FM, Pure Gold and CADA, as well as digital entertainment platform iHeartRadio. Their on-air talent includes Kyle & Jackie O, Will & Woody, and Jonesy & Amanda.
Airtasker CEO Tim Fung said the ARN deal is “an appealing capital-efficient way to drive growth” as part of the company’s global media partnership strategy.
“With podcasting and digital radio more popular than ever, audio is having a huge renaissance and presents a massive opportunity,” he said.
“The sheer ARN audience numbers – including for Kyle & Jackie O and Will & Woody – will amplify the stories that come with millions of tasks completed each year in the Airtasker community.”
ARN national agency sales director, Angus Leech said the partnership deal was mutually beneficial and will deliver the brand results Airtasker seeks
“This audio partnership is representative of the types of long term, multi-dimensional relationships that we aspire to with clients,” he said.
In the quarter to March 31, Airtasker reported positive free cash flow of $2.5m and $19.7m in cash and term deposits, with zero debt.
The jobs marketplace went public in March 2021, nine years after Fung cofounded the scale-up, at an IPO price of $0.65 cents a share.
Airtasker shares rose nearly 4% to $0.28 cents in trade to lunchtime on Thursday. The company’s share price has swung between $0.325 cents and $0.165 cents over the past 12 months.
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