Kuku FM, a South Korean audio content platform, has raised $19.5 million nonparallel B funding lead by Krafton; the producer of popular games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) and its India equivalent, Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI). Existing investors like 3one4 Capital, Vertex Ventures, and India Quotient joined the round, likewise as new investors Founder Bank Capital and Verlinvest.
Kuku FM has now raised a complete of $25 million during this round. The cash are use to expand the startup’s language options and streamline content creation, per the corporate. On March 3, rival Pocket FM announced the receipt of $65 million serial C funding led by Goodwater Capital; South Korean internet behemoth Naver, and current investor Tanglin Venture Partners. Kuku FM, founded in 2018 by Lal Chand Bisu, Vinod Meena, and Vikas Goyal; provides users with content production tools that allow anyone to make, develop, and publish content. It claims to possess over 30,000 creators and 6 million active paying users on its site.
Kuku FM now has approximately 150,000 hours of content on its platform; including audiobooks, stories, book summaries, courses, and podcasts in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, and Gujarati. Fiction and nonfiction audiobooks, self-help education titles, entertainment, news, mythology, spirituality, learning and inspirations, stories, poems, and jingles are among the categories covered by the service.
The startup says that over half its content is simply available on its platform. “Consumers in our country are consuming audio content at an unprecedented rate; with 70% of users hailing from Tier 2 cities.
We expect to succeed in 10 million active paid customers by the tip of this year and 50 million paid users by 2025; supported our current pace “Lalchand Bisu, the CEO of Kuku FM, stated.
“We are very excited to support them (Kuku FM) on their journey of building a robust creative and listener ecosystem that continues to grow at a fantastic rate, creating many unique local IPs,” Sean Hyunil Sohn, Head of India Division at Krafton, Inc. stated. “At Krafton Inc.,
We are convinced that the expansion of Indian IPs and regional Indian languages content will unlock the following big monetization opportunity not only in India but also globally within the future, and also the Kuku FM team is best position to capture this chance within the audio category,” he added.
Krafton has made multiple startup investments within the country during the last year. Nautilus Mobile may be a mobile game development studio, Loco could be a game streaming network, Nodwin Gaming is an esports company, Pratilipi is an Indian language storytelling platform, and FRND is an audio romance and friend discovery service.
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