Pocket FM Bags $100 Mn From Lightspeed, In Talks With ADIA For Another Fundraise: Report

Audio tech platform Pocket FM has reportedly secured a mega $100 Mn (nearly INR 829 Cr) in funding from venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners. 

Sources told Techcrunch that the fundraise took place recently, without specifying the timeline for the same. 

As per the report, the startup is now in talks with sovereign wealth fund Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) to raise a new “large” round of funding as Pocket FM firms up plans to make deeper inroads into the US. 

The discussions are still in the preliminary stages and the deal may or may not materialise going forward. 

Pocket FM and Lightspeed Venture Partners were not immediately available to comment on Inc42’s queries on the development. The story will be updated on receiving a response from them.

The mega fundraise follows Pocket FM reportedly scaling up its annualised revenue run rate (ARR) by 6X-7X year-on-year (YoY) to $160 Mn at the end of 2023. The startup recently also said that it was eyeing $100 Mn in ARR globally by 2025.

On top of that, the platform’s pay-as-you-go, non-subscription offering for US customers has also proven “especially successful”, as per the report. 

Founded in 2018 by Nishanth KS, Prateek Dixit, and Rohan Nayak, Pocket FM is an audio series platform that offers content across multiple languages and genres such as romance, self-help and motivation.

Operating on a freemium model, the platform employs a micro-transaction model which allows users to purchase coins in local currency to redeem for episodes beyond the free quota. As per a report, listeners on the platform spent more than 110 minutes daily on the platform.

Prior to the current round, the startup had raised more than $93 Mn across funding rounds. It last raised $16 Mn in debt from Silicon Valley Bank last year. Interestingly, the new fundraise comes after reports said in November that Pocket FM was closing in on a $80 Mn round. 

The startup is backed by the likes of Tencent, Tanglin, Times Internet, Goodwater Capital, and Naver.

Pocket FM’s India arm narrowed its net loss 56% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 75.7 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23). Meanwhile, its operating revenue surged 663% to INR 129.7 Cr in FY23 from INR 17.5 Cr in the previous year. 

While the $100 Mn fundraise is yet to be announced, the mega deal is expected to give a major impetus to the Indian startup ecosystem which has been reeling under a capital drought in the past two years.  

It will also give a major push to the dwindling mega deal (funding round in excess of $100 Mn) count, which receded to pre-2018 levels in 2023. Last year, Indian startups recorded a mere 23 mega deals against 60 in 2022 and 109 in 2021.