Xiaomi Makes Its First India Bet; Leads $25 Mn Round In Hungama

Indian digital media entertainment company, Hungama, has raised $25 Mn in a funding round led by smartphone company Xiaomi, along with existing investors Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and ace financial investor and Indian billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.

Hungama was launched 17 years ago, since than, it has constantly innovated and delivered differentiated, premium audio and video content to its consumers across web and mobile platforms. It has over 65 Mn monthly active users across all its platforms, consuming a content base of over 3.5 Mn premium digital units across audio and video.

Hungama currently serves customers in India and South Asians in over 70 countries worldwide. Its different verticals include:

1. Hungama Music – Offers subscribers an array of music and music video across languages and genres for streaming and downloads with its unique gamification layer.
2. Hungama Play  – It is a movie platform and has over 8000 Bollywood, Hollywood and Indian Regional Movies available in both HD and SD.
3. BollywoodHungama.com – It is a Bollywood news portal
4. ArtistAloud – A platform for Independent Artists

With this round of funding, the company will expand the content library and further invest in technology on its mobile app platforms Hungama Music for music and Hungama Play for premium video including movies, television, and original series.

The company plans to add over 1500 hours of television content, along with original content to its current Hungama Play offering of over 8000 movies in English and 12 Indian languages.

This is Xiaomi’s first investment in India. Speaking about the investment, Hugo Barra, Vice President, Xiaomi stated, “We think of smartphones as a platform for us to deliver internet services, and this includes content. We are investing in Hungama not only to start integrating content into our smartphones, but also to grow together with them and deepen our understanding of the content sector in India. We have carefully selected Hungama because of what they are doing in terms of aggregating large amounts of content and delivering an amazing user experience.”

Citi acted as exclusive financial advisor to Hungama on this transaction.

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