Gimlet Media British advertising firm WPP announced it was investing $5 million in Gimlet for a minority stake in the company. Alex Blumberg, a radio journalist, producer for "This American Life", and co-founder of "Planet Money", came up with the idea of a for-profit podcast network after the success of a T-shirt fundraising campaign for "Planet Money". He chose to document the foundation of Gimlet in the first season of "StartUp", the company's first show. Gimlet's co-founder, Matthew Lieber, holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, is a former radio producer at WNYC, and worked as a management consultant
Gimlet Media launched the podcast "Sampler", hosted by Brittany Luse, which, according to the producers, was "devoted to bringing you the best moments from the world of podcasting" by presenting excerpts from other, non-Gimlet podcasts and interviewing their makers. On October 17, 2016, Blumberg and Luse announced on the "Sampler" season finale that the podcast had been canceled. In November 2016, Gimlet described their new documentary series "Undone" as a show about "the things that happened when you weren't looking." It was hosted by Pat Walters, who'd previously been a producer for "Radiolab". For the show's season finale, Walters announced that "Undone"