The international finance corporation (IFC) and The Fundamentum Partnership, along with Vertex Ventures, co-led Kuku FM’s Series C round, which saw a total investment of $25 million.
In September 2022, Fundamentum led a Series B1 funding round that brought in $21.9 million for Kuku FM. Google, Paramark, KRAFTON, Inc., 3one4 Capital, V Cube Ventures, India Quotient, and FounderBank Capital are a few additional investors in the Mumbai-based startup.
The additional funding will be used by Kuku FM to further develop the content ecosystem, expand the breadth of content across Indian languages for its so-called “Bharat 2.0 audience,” and place a stronger emphasis on technology.
Kuku FM, which was founded in 2018 by Lal Chand Bisu, Vikas Goyal, and Vinod Kumar Meena, generates revenue through paywalled subscriptions from both individuals and companies for its audiobooks. It provides a vast selection of audio content in a variety of categories, including business, self-help, personal finance, history, religion, entertainment, and fitness.
It states to have more than 2.5 million paying subscribers as of right now.
Operating revenue for Kuku FM increased from Rs 4.4 crore in FY22 to Rs 41.2 crore in FY23. In the most recent fiscal year, the company’s sole source of income was the sale of subscription services for the content offering. Massive marketing and advertising expenditures by the company during the most recent fiscal year caused losses to increase by 2.23X to Rs 116.5 crore.
In some ways, the company is in competition with Pocket FM, Awaz, Headfone, Pratilipi, and Gaana. In a debt round in May, US-based Silicon Valley Bank contributed $16 million to Pocket FM. According to the business, revenue increased by 12X last year, surpassing $25 million ARR (annualized revenue run-rate) in October 2022.
