Pocket FM, an audio OTT app, has raised $22.4 million in an investment round begun by Lightspeed and followed by a clutch of investors, including Tanglin Venture Partners. The company declared it would use the Series B funding to scale up operations, build a community of content producers, and improve technology.
“We are at a juncture where both Pocket FM and the overall audio OTT space are witnessing exponential growth. Audio storytelling has now become a mainstream content format for entertainment, and our mission is to build Pocket FM as a global entertainment service provider,” stated Rohan Nayak, co-founder and chief executive officer of Pocket FM.
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Pocket FM, established in 2018, told it is among India’s top over-the-top players in the country, giving over 100,000 hours of long-format content. Since its launch, it has registered over 40 million downloads and 3 billion monthly listening minutes.
“We are excited to back the Pocket FM team as they scale up to build the future of audio content & are looking forward to the next phase of this incredible journey. The team has constantly innovated ahead of the curve, with multiple language offerings for their short & long-form audio content and in becoming the go-to destination for audio content creators,” shared Harsha Kumar, Partner at Lightspeed.
Sankalp Gupta, Partner, Tanglin Venture Partners, said, “The company’s stellar growth trajectory, user engagement, and retention are a testament of the consumer’s love for Pocket FM’s product.”
About Pocket FM
The Gurugram-based startup was established by Rohan Nayak, Nishanth Srinivas, and Prateek Dixit — all of them had developed and scaled mobile-based content products through their past works at Paytm, JioSaavn, Flipkart, and Grofers.
It also streams radio stations along-with provides listeners a platform to record their audio content, add voice effects, sounds, diverse music, and share it with the community, social media, etc.
Currently, it offers content in eight languages—Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bangla, English, Kannada and Marathi.
As per a Deloitte report, podcasts could be a $3.3 Bn business by 2025, and according to KPMG, India is the third-largest podcast-listening market globally. India’s podcast scene hosts more than 40 multilingual podcast startups, including Tencent-backed Pratilipi, Fosun RZ-backed Headfone, IVM Podcasts and Suno India among many others.
