Kuku FM Raises $85 Mn To Push Premium Content & Celebrity-Driven Audio Shows

Audio OTT startup Kuku FM has raised $85 Mn (about INR 747 Cr) in its Series C round led by VC firm Granite Asia. Besides, the round also saw participation from Vertex Growth Fund, Krafton, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Paramark, Tribe Capital India and Bitkraft.

The fresh capital will be deployed to optimise its premium content catalogue along with production of new shows. “With this investment, we’ll bring celebrated actors and television personalities into our shows. This will build more and more shows that surpass 100 Mn views while delivering the premium content to our audience,” Kuku FM’s CEO Lal Chand Bisu said.

The round has materialised about four months after it was reported that the startup had initiated early discussion with investors to raise its largest round till date of $70 Mn. Back then, the startup found itself in a social media spat with its archrival Pocket FMover an alleged “smear campaign” undertaken by the latter. Kuku’s Bisu had taken to X alleging that Pocket FM’s PR agency was behind the trending posts against Kuku FM.

Founded in 2018 by Bisu,Vikas Goyal and Vinod Kumar Meena, Kuku FM is an Indian audio content platform that hosts a wide range of audiobooks, podcasts, and original audio shows in multiple languages.

Before the close of this round, the startup had raised about $72 Mn from investors like 3one4 Capital, Fundamentum, India Quotient, among others.

Its flagship app audio OTT has seen over 100 Mn downloads on the app store, with content in 14 different languages and over 10 Mn paid subscribers. Besides, the startup also entered the microdrama category with a new app, Kuku TV, earlier this year.

To power its content production, the Mumbai-based audio OTT has developed its in-house GenAI studio, using AI to create content. The startup claims that the technology has helped in reducing the turnaround time and cost across all development stages from ideation, scripting and production.

The GenAI tools are used for multilingual translation, advertisement creation, and sentiment analysis.

On the financial front, Kuku FM reported an operating revenue of INR 88 Cr in FY24, a 114% higher than INR 41.1 Cr it had reported a year back. Meanwhile it managed to reduce its net loss by 18% to INR 96 Cr in the period under review from INR 116.5 Cr in FY23.

The funding round has materialised at a time when the Indian audio OTT market is seeing an uptick in traction. As per market estimates, the market is expected to grow at about 16% CAGR to $119 Bn by FY27.

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