Mumbai: Pocket FM, one of the leading Audio OTT platforms, has raised USD 65 million in a Series C funding round from a clutch of investors. The funding was led by Goodwater Capital, Naver, and an existing investor – Tanglin Venture Partners. The freshly raised capital will be invested in strengthening its leadership position, expanding into new languages, investing in AI capabilities, and building the largest audio creator community.
Pocket FM has established itself as one of the leading audio players within three years of its inception. The platform offers 100,000+ hours of enriching long-format content, audio series, stories, novels, podcasts, and knowledge show in 8 languages (Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bangla, English, Kannada, and Marathi). With over 50 million users and 3 billion+ monthly listening minutes, Pocket FM is one of the leading audio OTT platforms globally.
Commenting on the funding, Rohan Nayak, Co-founder and CEO, Pocket FM said, “We are elated to announce our Series C funding and would like to thank Goodwater Capital, Naver, and Tanglin Venture Partners for their trust in us. This is a validation of our market leadership and trust in our execution capabilities. Audio consumption has seen exponential growth over the last year, and we are on a mission to build the largest audio OTT platform.”
Expressing his views, Nishanth KS, Co-founder and COO, Pocket FM said, “In addition to audio entertainment, we saw 12x growth in consumption of self-help books, audio courses. Users are looking for high quality knowledge content to up-skill themselves. With this investment, we are looking to grow our creator community further, be the biggest audio destination for entertainment and knowledge, and targeting 5Mn paying users in the next 12 months.”
Sharing the details, Scott Shiao, Director, Investment at Goodwater Capital said, “Pocket FM empowers audio creators around the world in crafting the best long-form audio content, from writing to voice acting, while also providing a channel for consumers to find and discover that content. We look forward to helping Pocket FM to continue to grow its platform.”
Speaking on the funding, YongJung (YJ) Park, Investment Director at NAVER Corporation said, “Pocket FM has demonstrated unbelievable growth since its launch and has amazing momentum, quickly becoming a leader in the space of audio OTT platform. With its creator-first platform, Pocket FM is poised to lead this wave of growth in the audio OTT space and fuel the next generation of entertainment experiences. We’re excited to partner with them in the entertainment and content market as they build a robust audio ecosystem for audiences and creators alike, and to support the company in its next chapter of growth”.
Pocket FM is continuously working on introducing new set of shows and content to entertain its listeners. Today, the platform has a thriving creator community of over 50k+ PUGC writers & voice artists. Before this round, Pocket FM had raised $28.6 million in previous rounds, from existing marquee investors like Lightspeed, Tencent, Times Group, and Tanglin Venture Partners.
