The round also saw participation from its existing investors including 3one4 Capital, Vertex Ventures, and India Quotient. Founder Bank Capital and Verlinvest have also joined as new investors, as a part of the current round.
With the latest round of funding, Kuku FM has secured a total of $25 million in equity funding since its inception in 2018.
According to the company, it will use the funds to broaden its language offerings and consolidate its content creation strategy.
Kuku FM provides content creation tools to its users enabling them to create, develop and post content. It currently offers content in five languages including Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, and Gujarati. Genres available on the platform include fiction and nonfiction audiobooks, self-help education titles, entertainment, news, mythology, spirituality, among others.
“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 officer, Kuku FM.
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Bisu also added that Kuku FM is aiming to hit 10 million active paid users by the end of 2022, and 50 million paid users by 2025.
“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 the next big monetization opportunity not just in India but even globally,” said Sean Hyunil Sohn, head of India division at Krafton Inc.
Kuku FM currently has over 30,000 creators on its platform, with 50% of the overall content being exclusive to the platform, the company said.
