Fundamentum leads round for India's Kuku FM
Indian growth-stage investor The Fundamentum Partnership has led a USD 21.8m Series B extension for audio platform Kuku FM.
Krafton, a Korean gaming studio increasingly active in India’s burgeoning consumer media space, also participated. It was joined by Paramark Ventures, V Cube Ventures, and Vertex Holdings.
Krafton led an initial Series B investment of USD 19.5m in March with support from Vertex, 3one4 Capital, India Quotient, and Shunwei Capital. 3one4, India Quotient, and Shunwei have backed three rounds for the company since November 2019.
Kuku offers content such as podcasts, talk shows, and audiobooks across more than 50 genres in several Indian languages, targeting user segments from children to seniors. It claims to be the fastest growing premium audio content platform in the country with 1.6m paid subscribers and plans to reach 10m paid subscribers by 2023.
Competitors include Pocket FM, said to be the largest audio platform in India with more than 40m downloads. It has received more than USD 90m in VC funding since 2018, including a USD 65m round earlier this year. Media players like The Time Group, Naver, and Tencent Holdings are among its investors.
“The India-digitisation story has opened up opportunities across sectors. The content ecosystem has particularly benefitted from rapid growth in internet users,” Prateek Jain, a principal at Fundamentum, said in a social media post.
“In its four-year journey, Kuku FM has built a business with robust fundamentals, strong monetization model and a national creator-listener community. Kuku FM’s digital-first, tech-led approach, with its focus on the ‘Bharat’ audience fits ideally into our investment focus.”
Fundamentum was established in 2017 by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and Helion Venture Partners co-founder Sanjeev Aggarwal. It closed its second fund on USD 227m last month with a view to backing founders solving uniquely Indian problems.
More on South Asia
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.