Breaking: Barometer reads every podcast before your ad runsSpotify Ad Exchange grades episodes with Barometer AI$2.25M seed - $4.2M total raised since 2019Acast, Cumulus & Oxford Road on the rosterGARM scoring at episode level for digital audioInclusive brand suitability, not blunt blocklistsBreaking: Barometer reads every podcast before your ad runsSpotify Ad Exchange grades episodes with Barometer AI$2.25M seed - $4.2M total raised since 2019Acast, Cumulus & Oxford Road on the rosterGARM scoring at episode level for digital audioInclusive brand suitability, not blunt blocklists
Company Dossier●Adtech / AI / Audio●New York, USA●Est. 2018
The audio economy's fine print, read aloud
Barometer
AI that reads, scores and grades every podcast episode - so brands can buy audio without the guesswork.
A lowercase blue "b," small enough to fit on a browser tab, doing the unglamorous work of knowing exactly what a million hours of unscripted conversation actually say - before anyone presses play.
$4.2M
Total Raised
~37
Team
2018
Founded
GARM
Scored, Episode-Level
The Pitch
A company that sells advertisers a number for their nightmares
Here is a fear that every media buyer carries into the podcast market: I am about to spend real money next to two people talking, unscripted, for an hour, and I have no idea what they will say. Display advertising solved this problem decades ago with keyword blocklists. Podcasts, which are conversations rather than documents, broke that solution instantly. Barometer's entire business is turning that fear into something an advertiser can actually price.
Founded in 2018 and now based in New York, Barometer built what it calls the Brand Integrity Cloud - an AI system that transcribes podcast episodes, analyzes their content and sentiment, and scores them against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) framework. The output is deceptively simple: a suitability rating an advertiser can trust, generated before an episode is even released.
The clever part is what the scoring is not. It is not a keyword grep. Barometer's Host Intelligence reads tone and delivery, on the theory that the same word means very different things depending on who is saying it and how. That distinction - context over keywords - is the whole company, and it is why the largest players in audio keep signing up rather than building it themselves.
"Keyword blocklists were built for text. Podcasts are two people talking for an hour. The bet is that you need AI that understands tone, not just words."
The Barometer thesis, in one line
The Product
What you can actually do with it
01
Brand Integrity Cloud
Transcribes and analyzes episodes for content and sentiment, then scores them against the GARM framework so you can judge suitability and risk at a glance.
02
Media Planning Platform
Check GARM scores across every piece of digital audio in Barometer's network and build brand-safe campaigns before you commit a dollar.
03
Contextual Targeting
Applies the IAB content taxonomy to group podcasts into private-marketplace deals by what they're actually about - privacy-friendly, no cookies required.
04
Host Intelligence
Sentiment scoring that reads tone and delivery, going beyond keyword matching to understand how content lands, not just which words appear.
05
Inclusive Suitability
A framework (built with Audiohook) extending GARM to segments like Natural Disasters, Gambling and Occult - while keeping diverse creators fundable.
06
Pre-Bid Activation
Scores plug directly into programmatic pipelines like The Trade Desk, so buyers can target an episode's climate before it publishes.
The Argument Worth Noticing
"Brand safe" usually means "block everything." Barometer flipped it.
Most brand-safety tools optimize for one thing: avoid embarrassment. Set them loose on podcasting and they behave predictably - they block anything that mentions anything sensitive, which in practice means they quietly defund a lot of shows about difficult, important, or simply diverse subjects. Barometer's public stance is that this is a bug, not a feature.
Its "inclusive brand suitability" work, and its role in co-founding the Black Podcast Coalition with DCP, both push the same idea: suitability should be precise enough to keep good content eligible for ad spend rather than swept aside by a cautious filter. Whether or not you find that persuasive, it is a genuine position - and a rare one in an industry that mostly sells caution.
By The Numbers
Where the traction is
Platform reach - Spotify Ad Exchange integrationLive
Named platform & network partnerships7+
Total capital raised since 2019$4.2M
Team size~37
Figures compiled from public reporting (AdExchanger, Sounds Profitable, Dealroom, Podnews). Bars are illustrative of relative scale, not exact measures.
The Money
Seed-stage, and building the plumbing
Seed Round - March 2023$2.25M
Led by Knoll Ventures, BDMI and HearstLab - Hearst's fund for women-led tech startups - with returning backers Outlander Labs, Altari Ventures, Brickyard and Growth Warrior Capital. The round brought Barometer's total raised since 2019 to roughly $4.2M.
The Roster
Who's already plugged in
Spotify - Ad ExchangeThe Trade DeskAcastCumulus Podcast NetworkAudiohookOxford RoadSpeechmaticsDCP / Black Podcast CoalitionKatz DigitalGumball
Latest Updates
Recent moves
Jul 2024
With Audiohook, launched the Inclusive Brand Suitability framework, extending GARM categories to new audio segments.
Feb 2024
Partnered with NBM to launch the first Arabic-language podcast AI brand safety and suitability tool.
Dec 2023
Cumulus Podcast Network adopted Barometer for brand-safety measurement across its inventory.
Mar 2023
Closed a $2.25M seed round led by Knoll Ventures, BDMI and HearstLab; total funding reached $4.2M.
The Founders
Who's behind the "b"
CEO
Tamara Zubatiy
Co-founder and chief executive. Comes from a research background at Georgia Tech; sets the company's technical and inclusion-minded direction.
CTO
Grant Nelson
Co-founder and chief technology officer, leading the AI systems that transcribe, analyze and score audio at scale.
Leadership details drawn from public sources; roles as reported at time of writing.
Field Notes
Five things worth knowing
● Before you press play
Barometer analyzes episodes before release, so a buyer can target an episode's tone before anyone has heard it.
● The logo is the joke
A lowercase blue "b" for a company that takes the measure of the podcast climate - a barometer, literally.
● Atlanta roots
The founding is tied to Georgia Tech research, giving the New York company a Southern research lineage.
● Backed for a reason
HearstLab, one of its lead investors, funds women-led tech startups specifically.
Compiled from public sources including AdExchanger, Sounds Profitable, Podnews, Dealroom, Crunchbase, PitchBook and thebarometer.co. Figures are approximate and reflect the most recent public reporting available.
Quick facts: Barometer
Barometer is a New York-based adtech company that uses AI to make podcast and digital-audio advertising safer and more precise. Its Brand Integrity Cloud transcribes and analyzes podcast episodes for content, sentiment and risk, scoring them against the GARM framework and IAB contextual taxonomy so advertisers can plan campaigns, avoid unsuitable content, and target episodes at scale. The company powers episode-level brand suitability for platforms including Spotify's Ad Exchange on The Trade Desk and Acast.
Founded
2018
Headquarters
New York, United States
Founders
Tamara Zubatiy (Co-Founder & CEO), Grant Nelson (Co-Founder & CTO)
Raised $4.2M total since 2019, including a $2.25M seed round in 2023, Selected by Spotify to analyze every episode on its Ad Exchange for episode-level brand suitability, Integrated brand-safety and contextual targeting into The Trade Desk for programmatic audio
