Audio Book Platform Kuku FM has secured $25 million in a Series C round of funding to amplify its multi-lingual audio book ecosystem and technology development. Earlier, the startup raised $21.9 million in a Series B1 round led by Fundamentum in September 2022.
Founded in 2018 by Lal Chand Bisu, Vikas Goyal, and Vinod Kumar Meena, Kuku FM has cumulatively raised $47.3 million prior to this Series C round and have a paid subscriber base of 2.5 million.
“In our journey towards building a business model focused on Bharat 2.0 segment and creating a sustainable business model with a clear path to profitability, Fundamentum team’s insights and support have been invaluable. We are excited to welcome our new partner International Finance Corporation,” said Lal Chand Bisu, Co-founder and CEO, Kuku FM.
Currently, Kuku FM hosts 150,000 hours of content in various formats including audiobooks, stories, book summaries, courses, and podcasts with a majority of the content being exclusive to the platform.
Kuku FM’s platform offers a wide range of genres including fiction and non-fiction audiobooks, personal finance, self-help, education titles, entertainment, news, mythology, spirituality, learning and inspirational content, among others.
Kuku FM to build creator-lister community
“Kuku FM has created a niche category which caters to the unique and rapidly evolving demands of the new digital natives of India. We are excited to be a partner in Kuku FM’s journey in building a strong national creator-listener community, with specific focus on supporting entrepreneurs,” said Prateek Jain, Principal, Fundamentum Partnership.
The funding was co-led by The Fundamentum Partnership and International Finance Corporation (IFC), with participation from Vertex Ventures, and others including Google, Paramark, KRAFTON, Inc, 3one4 Capital, V Cube Ventures, India Quotient and FounderBank Capital.
