Kuku FM Raises $85 Million to Ramp Up Premium, Celebrity-Led Audio Content

Audio OTT platform Kuku FM has raised $85 million in a Series C funding round to expand its premium content offerings and bring celebrities into its shows. The investment comes at a time when India’s audio streaming market is heating up, and the platform aims to strengthen its position with higher quality productions and broader reach.

Funding Round & Investors:

• The Series C round was led by Granite Asia.
• Other participants included Vertex Growth Fund, Krafton, IFC (International Finance Corporation), Paramark, Tribe Capital India, and Bitkraft.
• Before this, Kuku FM had already raised around $72 million from backers like 3one4 Capital, Fundamentum, India Quotient, among others.

How the Funds Will Be Used:

• A key target is to optimize Kuku FM’s premium content catalogue and increase the production of new shows.
• The company intends to involve well-known actors and television personalities in its audio shows to attract more listeners and views.
• It aims to create content that surpasses 100 million views.
• To aid content creation, Kuku FM has developed an in-house GenAI studio using artificial intelligence for ideation, scripting, translation, sentiment analysis, and ad generation. This helps reduce costs and speed up creative workflows.

Platform Background & Reach:

• Founded in 2018 by Lal Chand Bisu, Vikas Goyal, and Vinod Kumar Meena, Kuku FM offers a variety of audio formats, audiobooks, podcasts, original audio shows, in multiple languages.
• The app has over 100 million downloads, supports content in 14 languages, and has more than 10 million paid subscribers.
• Earlier this year, Kuku FM also ventured into microdramas by launching a new app called Kuku TV.

Financials & Market Context:

• In FY24, Kuku FM reported an operating revenue of ₹88 crore, which is a jump of 114% from ₹41.1 crore in the previous year.
• Its net loss narrowed by 18%, from ₹116.5 crore in FY23 to ₹96 crore in FY24.
• The Indian audio OTT market is gaining momentum, with projections that it will grow at a 16% CAGR, reaching $119 billion by FY27.