Kuku, the Google-backed Indian storytelling platform, has raised $85 million in fresh funding as it aims to expand its audio and video content offerings as competition intensifies in the South Asian country’s mobile-first content market.
The Series C round, led by Granite Asia (formerly GGV Capital), more than doubles Kuku’s previous valuation to about $500 million, Kuku founder and CEO Lal Chand Bis confirmed to TechCrunch. The round also saw participation from Vertex Growth Fund, Krafton, IFC, Paramark, Tribe Capital India, and Bitkraft.
The latest round also included a secondary transaction, with some of Kuku’s early investors partially exiting by selling their shares to new investors. This includes Google, which used to hold a 2% stake but is now fully out, Bisu told TechCrunch.
With over 1 billion internet subscribers and around 700 million smartphone users, India has seen a significant increase in digital content consumption driven by ultra-low data costs and seamless micropayments. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently said that 1 GB of data costs less than a cup of tea in India. The country’s government-backed Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that enables instant digital payments between bank accounts, making digital transactions also easy and widely accessible. This combination has made the Indian market attractive to global players like Instagram and YouTube, while also giving local platforms like Kuku a competitive advantage in reaching mass audiences through content in India’s local languages.
According to an EY report (PDF) released in March, digital media will overtake television for the first time in 2024 to become the largest segment of India’s media and entertainment sector, accounting for 32% of total revenue, or 802 billion rupees (approximately $9.13 billion). The report also predicts that digital media will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.2% from 2024 to 2027.
This growth potential has led players like Kuku to experiment with new formats, such as the recently popularized microdramas (short, continuous video stories designed for mobile viewing). The format has caught on across Indian startups and has also attracted the attention of global platforms, with Mehta recently launching its own micro-drama series in the country aimed at Gen Z viewers.
Founded in 2018, Kuku first gained traction among content consumers in India with its audiobook offering through Kuku FM. Since then, the company has expanded its product suite and now operates two flagship platforms. One is Kuku TV, which presents long-form stories as bite-sized episodes in a vertical format, and the other is Kuku FM, which focuses on audio-first programming. The platforms offer content in over eight Indian languages and have over 10 million paying subscribers, up from 2 million in the previous round in 2023, the company said.
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Bisu declined to reveal actual financial numbers, but said the startup has grown by 2x in average revenue per user and 10x overall since its last round of funding. He pointed out that about 80% of subscribers are from cities outside of metropolitan areas.
About 60% of Kuku’s subscriber base is male and 40% female, Bis said, adding that most subscribers are between the ages of 25 and 35.
Kuku offers access to its platform through paid subscription plans such as ₹199 per month (approx. $2), ₹499 per quarter (approx. $6), and ₹1,499 per year (approx. $17). Bisu said quarterly plans are the most popular among users.
Consumers spend an average of 100 minutes on Kuku’s platform every day, the founders said, adding that more than 90% of the startup’s subscribers remain active each month.
Kuku acquires content through third-party content creators and currently has approximately 10,000 participating creators. More than 50% of them are from small towns and cities outside of large cities, Biss said. He pointed out that the startup pays creators about 400 million rupees (about $4.5 million) every month.
The Kuku FM app leads in downloads and consumer spending among a portfolio of startups that includes Kuku TV, Kuku Bhakti (a devotional app featuring stories based on Hindu mythology), and StoRizz (focused on bite-sized microdramas), according to data from Appfigures shared with TechCrunch.
As of September, Kuku has recorded over 229 million total downloads, including 122 million for Kuku FM and 88 million for Kuku TV. According to data from Appfigures, Kuku’s apps generated more than $4 million in consumer spending, including $2.8 million from Kuku FM and $1.3 million from Kuku TV.
In 2025 alone, the startup recorded over 134 million downloads (up 533% year over year) and consumer spending of $1.9 million, up 156%, according to data from Appfigures.
Bisu told TechCrunch that Kuku TV is larger than Kuku FM in terms of consumption, accounting for more than 60% of total usage.
The Bangalore-based startup has built GenAI Studio to streamline content creation by employing AI tools for multilingual translation and on-demand ad production. The studio includes software from AI companies like OpenAI and Celebrities, as well as some of Kuku’s in-house tools.
“We’re shifting most of our focus to our own tools, because we have a lot of our own data. We train those models on our own data, and the output is actually much better than external tools,” Bisu told TechCrunch.
Rather than using GenAI to independently produce content, the startup is using GenAI to help creators develop audio and video stories for its platform. The tool helps generate titles, plots, scripts, dialogue, and thumbnails, but the actual audio and video production is done manually, Bisu says.
He added that 70% to 80% of the work at Kuku is done by GenAI, with the remaining 20% still being done manually.
Without naming specific individuals, Biss said the startup plans to use the new funding to enhance its content by bringing in celebrities, including film and TV talent.
Still, Kuku faces stiff competition from local rivals, especially Pocket FM, which offers a similar audio-visual storytelling format. Pocket FM has filed multiple copyright infringement lawsuits against Kuku. Just recently, the Delhi High Court restrained Kuku from releasing new episodes of the five disputed shows.
Biss said the lawsuit by Pocket FM is aimed at distracting investors. “Every time we do a fundraiser, they [Pocket FM] Go to a court somewhere and file a lawsuit. So this is not the first time,” Bisu told TechCrunch.
He added that Kuku has a dedicated team that manually reviews all uploaded content to check for copyright violations. The startup has also developed a tool to detect if creators are uploading copyrighted or third-party content.
“Some of the money [from this round] We will continue to work on improving these tools. “We will invest in technology that allows creators to identify when they are using someone else’s work,” Biss said.
According to data from Appfigures, compared to Pocket FM, Kuku had more downloads but significantly less revenue from in-app purchases. According to Appfigures, the majority of Kuku’s downloads and revenue comes from India, while Pocket FM gets 82% of its downloads from India, but 98% of its revenue comes from outside the country.
According to data from Appfigures, Kuku saw strong growth in both downloads and consumer spending in 2025, while Pocket FM saw downloads decline 21% year over year to 38 million, but consumer spending grew 61% to $100 million.
That said, Kuku plans to use the latest funding to strengthen its AI and data infrastructure, hire new technology and content talent to expand its workforce by 150 people, and deepen its creator partnerships and scale in India and abroad. The startup is already testing its service in the Middle East and the US, and plans to scale up there in 2026.
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