In what comes as grand news for Pocket FM, the audio entertainment platform raised a staggering $103 Million in funding! This is the company’s largest fundraising yet in its Series D funding. The fundraise provides more evidence of the funding freeze easing up for startups, thus demonstrating a clear path to growth. Pocket FM’s valuation has nearly doubled in the latest fundraising to about $750 million from $390 million.
The company previously raised $65 million in its Series C round in March 2022. Lightspeed Ventures along with Stepstone Group led the latest round. It took Pocket FM’s total fundraising to approx. $196.5 million. Other investors in the company include Goodwater Capital, Tanglin Venture Partners, Naver, Times Internet, and Tencent.
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Pocket FM ventured into the US in 2022, and has already surpassed an annualised revenue run rate of $100 million, accounting for about three-fourths of its overall business. They have about 10 million registered users in the US.
The new funding will strengthen Pocket FM’s push into the US market and also support global expansion as the company plans to expand into Europe and Latin American markets in 2024. They are already shoring up their content library and creating a strong IP playbook for their writers.
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The company also said it has come up with an artificial intelligence-led strategy for automation, content curation, production, and distribution. It also plans to leverage generative AI to scale up its offerings and personalise user experience.
Pocket FM Stats
- Founded in 2018, Pocket FM has been hailed as the ‘Netflix for Audio’. It has built a repository of exclusive audio series with 130 million users worldwide.
- It has over 100,000 hours of content, including over 2,000 exclusive audio series and more than 400,000 episodes across genres and languages.
- The company has exceeded $150 million in annualised revenue run rate, which it said is growing at 57% every quarter.
- It has clocked over 20 million transactions in 2023.
- In FY23, Pocket FM India’s operating revenues jumped more than sevenfold from a year earlier to ₹131 crore, while its loss narrowed 56% to ₹76 crore, according to the company’s latest regulatory filings.
From The Key Stakeholders
“We identified an unexplored space in the entertainment industry driven by an increasing demand for audio fiction and crafted a playbook to address this opportunity across every key market. Our robust content library of audio series and a strong consumption behaviour on the platform is shaping the future of entertainment,” said Rohan Nayak.
“Our focus remains on tapping into unique and exclusive stories to solidify our leadership in this emerging category and create a strong IP playbook. This latest funding validates our vision and the possibilities we bring to disrupt the industry,” added Nayak.
“What sets Pocket FM apart is its vision to set up a sustainable and profitable business, backed by its unique pricing strategy. It emerges as a great reference for the entertainment landscape, with its capability to demonstrate strong unit economics. They are not just building a new category but democratizing the entertainment landscape with a tech-driven approach,” said Harsha Kumar, Partner at Lightspeed.
Led by Rohan Nayak, Nishanth Srinivas, and Prateek Dixit, this is such a big deal for Pocket FM! We look forward to watching how the company plans to make use of these massive funds and revamp the platform. Let’s wait and watch what new innovations and offerings turn up.
