Mebigo Labs Pvt Ltd, which runs audio content platform Kuku FM, on Thursday said it has secured $19.5 million (around Rs 148 crore) in a Series B round led by South Korean gaming company Krafton.
The fundraise also saw participation from existing investors including 3one4 Capital, Vertex Ventures and India Quotient, with Founder Bank Capital and Verlinvest joining as the new backers.
The firm plans to use the fresh funds to drive expansion, expand language offerings and boost creation of contents.
Kuku FM, launched in 2018, offers users with tools that enables them to create, develop and post content. It offers content in Hindi, Marathi, Bangla, Tamil and Gujarati languages, and also claims to host 150,000 hours of content across audiobooks, stories, book summaries, courses and podcasts on its platform.
The latest fund has raised the platform’s total to$25 million (approximately Rs 190 crore), since its inception.
"We have seen an unprecedented consumption of audio content amongst users in our country with 70% users coming from tier 2 cities," said Lal Chand Bisu, Co-Founder and CEO, Kuku FM.
“We have a great synergy of vision with Krafton and are thrilled to have them on board as an integral investing partner. With this momentum, we are confident about hitting 10 million active paid users by the end of this year and 50 million paid users by 2025," he added.
“Indian IPs and regional Indian languages content growth will unlock next big monetization opportunity not just in India but even globally in the long term and Kuku FM team is best placed to capture this opportunity in the audio category,” said Sean Hyunil Sohn, Head of India Division at Krafton.