Pocket FM Secures $65 Million in Fundraising led by Goodwater Capital & Others
Pocket FM has secured $65 million in Series C fundraising headed by South Korean internet behemoth Naver, Goodwater Capital, and current investor Tanglin Venture Partners.
This round of investment comes roughly three months after the company received $22.4 million in Series B capital in December of last year. To date, the startup has received $93.6 million in funding from investors including Lightspeed, Times Group, Tencent, and Tanglin Venture Partners.
The funds raised will be used by the Gurugram-based startup to strengthen its offering, expand to new languages, invest in artificial intelligence capabilities, scale its community of audio content creators, and assist them in monetising on the platform.
Pocket FM's CEO, Rohan Nayak, stated, "This is a validation of our market leadership and trust in our execution capabilities. Audio consumption has seen exponential growth over the last year, and we are on a mission to build the largest audio OTT platform".
Pocket FM, which was founded in 2018 by Nayak, Nishanth Srinivas, and Prateek Dixit, claims to have over 100,000 hours of long-format audio programming in English and seven Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, and Marathi. It claims to have over 50,000 professional user-generated content (PUGC) writers and voice artists as part of its creative community.
The service is accessible for INR 399 per year as part of a yearly subscription. It also has a free, ad-supported version with a limited library of content. The business said in December that users spend more than 110 minutes each day on the app.
Pocket FM co-founder Nishanth KS stated: "In addition to audio entertainment, we saw 12x growth in consumption of self-help books, audio courses. Users are looking for high quality knowledge content to up-skill themselves. With this investment, we are looking to grow our creator community further, and target 5 million paying users in the next 12 months".
According to Scott Shiao, Director of Investments at Goodwater Capital, "Pocket FM empowers audio creators around the world in crafting the best long-form audio content, from writing to voice acting, while also providing a channel for consumers to find and discover that content. We look forward to helping Pocket FM to continue to grow its platform."
This round of investment comes roughly three months after the company received $22.4 million in Series B capital in December of last year. To date, the startup has received $93.6 million in funding from investors including Lightspeed, Times Group, Tencent, and Tanglin Venture Partners.
The funds raised will be used by the Gurugram-based startup to strengthen its offering, expand to new languages, invest in artificial intelligence capabilities, scale its community of audio content creators, and assist them in monetising on the platform.
Pocket FM's CEO, Rohan Nayak, stated, "This is a validation of our market leadership and trust in our execution capabilities. Audio consumption has seen exponential growth over the last year, and we are on a mission to build the largest audio OTT platform".
Pocket FM, which was founded in 2018 by Nayak, Nishanth Srinivas, and Prateek Dixit, claims to have over 100,000 hours of long-format audio programming in English and seven Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, and Marathi. It claims to have over 50,000 professional user-generated content (PUGC) writers and voice artists as part of its creative community.
The service is accessible for INR 399 per year as part of a yearly subscription. It also has a free, ad-supported version with a limited library of content. The business said in December that users spend more than 110 minutes each day on the app.
Pocket FM co-founder Nishanth KS stated: "In addition to audio entertainment, we saw 12x growth in consumption of self-help books, audio courses. Users are looking for high quality knowledge content to up-skill themselves. With this investment, we are looking to grow our creator community further, and target 5 million paying users in the next 12 months".
According to Scott Shiao, Director of Investments at Goodwater Capital, "Pocket FM empowers audio creators around the world in crafting the best long-form audio content, from writing to voice acting, while also providing a channel for consumers to find and discover that content. We look forward to helping Pocket FM to continue to grow its platform."
.jpg "Caim By Arelang: India's First CandyCeuticals Company Offering Nutraceuticals in Irresistibly Tasty Treats")
