Kuku FM Raises $19.5 Million in Series B Funding The vernacular audio platform will use this new investment to drive expansion and strengthen its content bank
By S Shanthi
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Vernacular audio content platform, Kuku FM, has secured 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 was founded in 2018. The company claims that it is India's only platform that provides content creation tools to its users enabling them to create, develop and post content. Offering content in five languages (Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, and Gujarati), Kuku FM hosts 150, 000 hours of content across audiobooks, stories, book summaries, courses, and podcasts on its platform. Kuku FM's offering covers genres including fiction and nonfiction audiobooks, self-help education titles, entertainment, news, mythology, spirituality, learning and inspirations, stories, poems, and even jingles.
"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 per cent of users coming from Tier 2 cities. We are excited to witness the evolution of this genre," said Lal Chand Bisu, co-founder and CEO, Kuku FM.
He further added, "We have a great synergy of vision with KRAFTON and are thrilled to have them on board as an integral investing partner. With this momentum, we are confident about hitting 10Mn active paid users by the end of this year and 50 Mn paid users by 2025."
Commenting on the investment, Sean Hyunil Sohn, head of India civision, KRAFTON, Inc. said, "We are very excited to partner with Kuku FM and support them in their journey of building a strong creator and listener ecosystem which continues to grow at an amazing pace creating many unique local IPs .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."
