Pocket FM, Audio OTT platforms, has announced it has raised $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, it said in a press release.
Pocket FM 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), it said.
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. Audio consumption has seen exponential growth over the last year, and we are on a mission to build the largest audio OTT platform.”
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.”
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.”
YongJung (YJ) Park, Investment Director at NAVER Corporation said, "We are 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”.
Prior to 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.
