Kuku FM, a leading audio content platform, has raised Series B funding of $19.5 million led by South Korean gaming giant KRAFTON, Inc. The round also saw participation from its existing investors including 3one4 Capital, Vertex Ventures, and India Quotient, with Founder Bank Capital and Verlinvest joining as new investors.
With this latest round of funding, Kuku FM has secured a total of $25 million since its inception in 2018. Fueling its existing offerings, Kuku FM will use the funds raised through this investment to broaden its language offerings and consolidate content creation.
“Kuku FM is pioneering a new category for audio content by bringing premium, unique, and immersive digital audio experiences to our users. We have seen an unprecedented consumption of audio content amongst users in our country with 70% users coming from tier 2 cities,” said Lal Chand Bisu, cofounder and chief executive of Kuku FM.
Bisu added that the company was aiming to hit 10 million active paid users by the end of 2022, and 50 million by 2025.
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Kuku FM was founded in 2018 by former IITians and Toppr executives Lal Chand Bisu, Vinod Meena, and Vikas Goyal. It offers users with tools that enables them to create, develop and post content. It offers content in Hindi, Marathi, Bangla, Tamil and Gujarati languages, and also claims to host 150,000 hours of content across audiobooks, stories, book summaries, courses and podcasts on its platform.
Its offering covers a wide range of genres from fiction and nonfiction audiobooks, self-help education titles, entertainment, news, mythology, spirituality, learning and inspirations, stories, poems, and even jingles. With 30k creators, 50 percent of the content is exclusive to the platform and only available on their platform.
Commenting on the investment, Sean Hyunil Sohn, head of India Division at KRAFTON Inc, said, “Here at KRAFTON Inc., we strongly believe that Indian IPs and regional Indian languages content growth will unlock next big monetization opportunity not just in India but even globally in the long term and Kuku FM team is best placed to capture this opportunity in the audio category.”
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