Kuku FM is an entertainment platform, backed by investors like Nandan Nilekani’s Fundamentum, 3one4 Capital, Vertex Ventures, India Quotient, Verlinvest, FBC, South Korean Gaming Giant Krafton to name a few.
Kuku FM offers an array of audio series, audiobooks, and concise summaries across over 20 genres and in 8 languages.
The platform aims to entertain, educate and inspire the lives of millions of Indians with serialised long form original content around entertainment, education, self-help and more. Currently, Kuku FM has over 150K hours of content in various formats on the platform, over 50 million app downloads, 2.5 million paying subscribers & 5000+ creators. The company was founded by Lal Chand Bisu (CEO), Vinod Kumar Meena (COO), and Vikas Goyal (CTO), all alumni of IIT Jodhpur.
Kuku FM embodies the principle that “Entertainment Belongs to Everyone” by bringing together personalisation with regional nuances by leveraging Generative AI across its operations, encompassing content creation, production, and distribution. Medianews4u.com caught up with Jhoomer Sinha VP India Hindi Business Kuku FM.
Q. Six years after it launched Kuku FM managed to cross two million active paying subscribers. What factors have contributed to this growth?
Multiple factors have contributed to this phenomenal growth. In the entertainment business, it is important to recognise that our biggest competition is boredom. Today users have many options for content consumption, however they pay only when they see a content that they value, which comes either from 1. content that helps them improve themselves or 2. entertain themselves. We solve for this with our premium quality content that is priced just right so that anyone can access them.
Besides this customer centricity, our ability to scale across metros and non-metros have also been a key contributor to this growth.
Q. Indian users are not very keen to pay for content, especially in non-metro cities. How did Kuku FM break through and what can the media and entertainment industry learn from its success?
In order to get users to pay, it’s important to understand what they seek and showcase how it benefits the audience directly so that they spend their valuable time on the app.
With a mix of intelligence built using AI tools as well as our custom in-house models, we are able to generate this insight. This allows us to personalise content recommendation for each user. This coupled with regionalisation and localisation has helped us broaden our reach and help users get the best for their investment.
Q. Kuku FM has so far raised $25 million from VCs like Krafton, Verlinvest, Vertex, 3one4 Capital and IQ. What are their expectations?
Profitability and sustainable growth with industry leading margins. We are on the way there.
Q. What content consumption trends are being seen on the platform in terms of genre and language preferences, times of consumption?
We see that people are interested in more content around genres such as devotion, education, self-development and general entertainment. There is a rising need to consume content that helps people improve or better their lives regularly. In terms of languages Hindi is our largest vertical and on average people spend around 100 minutes on the platform.
Q. Is the key TG Gen Z and millennials NCCS A, B Metros?
As I mentioned earlier, we have something for everyone. Our content is relevant for anyone in the age bracket of 18-99 years. From education to thrillers and fantasy to devotional content, we have content for all.
Q. Could you shed light on how the monetisation model works in terms of Rs. 899 a year for subscription and is this being tweaked?
Aside from annual subscription, we have also recently introduced quarterly subscription which is gaining traction. There is also an option of pay-as-you-go enabled via microtransactions where selected shows or selected episodes can be unlocked for a smaller transaction value.
Q. Kuku FM started with a few regional languages. How has it scaled up since into languages like Hindi?
We have scaled up massively given 60-70% of our users are from Hindi speaking belts. And the reason for this scale is our investment in GenAI which has tripled our content production.
Q. What are the plans to diversify into other content formats including comics, anime, video, and text?
We have ambitious plans for the same and will announce it at the right time.
Q. What marketing activities does Kuku FM do to create awareness around its services?
We use a mix of influencer and performance marketing to drive awareness.
Q. How important is word of mouth?
Extremely important for a brand like us. People only recommend a product or service to their friends or family if they like it. For a story telling brand like us word of mouth helps us drive more growth especially in newer and emerging markets.
Q. Are there any plans to tap into ad revenue streams like branded content?
No such plans as of yet.
Q. To grow reach does Kuku FM have partnerships with mobile phone manufacturers so that it is pre-installed?
We don’t have any such existing partnerships as of now.
Q. How does Kuku FM use AI to help with the challenge around content discovery?
AI is an enabler for content production as well as distribution. Our content creators such as storytellers, artists and creative teams use AI, but it is not limited to them alone. Our analytics, engagement and marketing team uses several AI tools such as publicly available open source models trained with our data to drive personalized recommendation to each user and help with content discovery which keep the users engaged.
