Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADIA is currently in discussions to support Pocket FM with a substantial new round of funding, according to two sources familiar with the situation. The Indian audio-storytelling platform is making significant progress in the U.S. market.
The ongoing talks for the new funding round come after Pocket FM recently secured about $100 million in a separate funding round from Lightspeed Venture Partners. The sources, who requested anonymity as the details are not public yet, revealed this information.
TechCrunch previously reported about Lightspeed Venture Partners’ interest in investing in Pocket FM. The discussions with ADIA and the recent funding round closure haven’t been reported before.
The funding discussions follow a rapid revenue growth at the Indian startup, offering serialized fiction and non-fiction content. Towards the end of last year, Pocket FM’s annualized revenue exceeded $160 million, a significant increase from the previous year, as reported by TechCrunch.
ADIA has not provided a comment on the matter, while Pocket FM stated that it refrains from commenting on market speculations.
Having Tencent, Tanglin, and Times Internet as backers, Pocket FM publicly aims to reach an ARR of $100 million by the end of 2023.
Image credits: Bain
Last year, Indian startups saw a decline in large-scale funding rounds due to various prominent crossover funds reducing their investments in India and other markets, as noted by Bain. However, several sovereign funds, including ADIA, increased their investments in late-stage startups like PhonePe, Lenskart, and Pharmeasy.
Pocket FM’s expansion into the U.S. and its non-subscription, pay-as-you-go model have been highly successful. Operating on a freemium model, the platform offers long-form episodic storytelling allowing users to pay only for the content they prefer.
Since implementing a micro-transaction model in early 2022, users can purchase coins in local currency to access additional content beyond the free quota. On average, listeners spend over 110 minutes daily on the platform.
The startup recently announced a $40 million investment to expand its online reading platform, Pocket Novel, which has already attracted over 90,000 writers in less than a month.
