Audio OTT app Pocket FM raises $.22.4 mn from Lightspeed, Times Group, Tanglin

Leading audio OTT app Pocket FM has raised USD 22.4 million in series-B funding round from Lightspeed, Times Group and Tanglin Venture Partners.

In the previous rounds, Pocket FM had raised USD 650,000 in seed funding round and USD 5.6 million in series-A and is also backed by Tencent.

Founded in 2018, Pocket FM offers 1 lakh hours of content via long-format content, audio shows, stories, novels, and podcasts in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bangla, Kannada, Marathi and English.

While the Times Group is an existing investor, for Tanglin Venture Partners this is their first investment into the startup, Pocket FM said in a statement on Monday.

The company will leverage the capital to expand its presence, ramp up operations into new geographies, invest in technology, and build a large community of audio content creators to strengthen the overall audio OTT category, it said.

Founded in 2018, Pocket FM is now amongst the top OTT players in the country that offers over 1 lakh hours of long-format content. Since its founding, it has seen over 40 million downloads, 3 billion monthly listening minutes, and over 110 minutes being spent by users daily on the app, it claimed and said it intends to surpass 100 million users in the next six months.

Rohan Nayak, co-founder and chief executive of Pocket FM, said Pocket FM has already the largest community of content creators as audio storytelling has now become a mainstream content format for entertainment.

Sankalp Gupta, partner at Tanglin Venture Partners, said Pocket FM is a pioneer in the audio OTT space and their approach towards democratising audio content creation is a game-changer.

Abhishek Mitra Gupta, managing partner of Tanglin Ventures, backed by the Times Group, believes Pocket FM will continue to lead this segment.

Pocket FM today works with a thriving community of over 17,000 writers and voice artists.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)