Streaming music leader Spotify is making a massive bet on podcasting -- a burgeoning format that has notably been pursued by a number of YouTube stars in recent years. Today, Spotify announced that it will acquire two of the biggest players in the space: Brooklyn-based podcast producer Gimlet Media, which is behind hits like Reply All and Homecoming, as well as Anchor -- a distribution platform that enables anyone to publish and monetize their own audio shows. While Spotify did not disclose a purchase price, Recode pegs the Gimlet acquisition at $230 million, and notes that Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek said that the company plans to spend $500 million on deals in the podcast space this year. In a blog post, Ek said that the company “sees an opportunity apart from where we sit today. An opportunity that will allow us to reach beyond music to engage users in entirely new ways." (That said, it's not entirely new: the company funded exclusive shows from comic Amy Schumer and rapper Joe Budden over the summer). Ek noted that while the video industry is a Streaming music leader Spotify is making a massive bet on podcasting -- a burgeoning format that has notably been pursued by a number of YouTube stars in recent years.