Kuku FM raises USD 85 million as mobile storytelling app bets big on regional content

New Delhi: Mobile entertainment app Kuku has raised USD 85 million in a funding round led by Granite Asia, previously known as GGV Capital, a top company official said on Thursday.

Vertex Growth Fund, Krafton, IFC, Paramark, Tribe Capital India, and Bitkraft also participated in the funding round.

Kuku, Founder and CEO, Lal Chand Bisu, told PTI that the fund will be mainly invested in content creation and building tools to support creators and storytelling.

"We have raised USD 85 million in a fresh round. There is a big gap in premium content in India, mostly in regional languages. We started with Hindi, then Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada. There are a lot of other languages... Most of the funds will go there and to innovate on the content side," he said.

Excluding the fresh funding round, Kuku has raised around USD 68 million in various tranches till date. The company had last raised USD 20.8 million in August 2023.

Bisu said that the fresh funds have come at more than 2 times the valuation that the company had in the last funding round.

Founded in 2018, Kuku is a storytelling platform across multiple formats. It has two flagship platforms -- Kuku FM and Kuku TV. The company at present has over 10 million paid subscribers.

Kuku estimates that India's short-form audio and video market will reach approximately USD 2 billion annually within the next five years, mirroring similar trends in China and the United States.

"With this investment, we'll bring celebrated actors and television personalities into our shows. This will build more and more shows that surpass 100 million views, while delivering the premium content to our audience," Bisu said.

Granite Asia, senior managing partner, Jenny Lee, said Kuku represents a new wave of Indian consumer platforms built on deep local insight and mobile-first innovation.

"We're excited to catalyze the team's vision to become India's leading storytelling platform -- drawing on our experience partnering with consumer tech leaders across Asia to turn local creativity into global platforms," Lee said.