Kooku, an Indian storytelling platform backed by Google, has raised $85 million in fresh funding as it aims to expand its audio and video content offerings amid growing competition in the South Asian country’s mobile-first content market.
Kooku’s Founder and CEO Lal Chand Bisu confirmed to TechCrunch that the Series C round led by Granite Asia (formerly GGV Capital) valued Kooku at nearly $500 million, more than double its previous valuation. The round also saw participation from Vertex Growth Fund, Krafton, IFC, Paramark, Tribe Capital India and Bitcraft.
The latest round also included a secondary transaction, in which some of KuCoo’s early investors partially exited by selling their shares to new investors. This also includes Google, which had a 2% stake and is now exiting completely, Bisu told TechCrunch.
India, home to over a billion internet subscribers and nearly 700 million smartphone users, is experiencing huge growth in digital content consumption driven by ultra-low data costs and seamless micropayments. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently made this comment 1GB data in India costs less than a cup of teaThe country’s government-backed Unified Payments Interface (UPI) – a system that enables instant digital payments between bank accounts – has also made digital transactions easier and widely accessible. This combination has made the Indian market attractive to global players like Instagram and YouTube, while also giving local platforms like Kooku a competitive edge in reaching massive audiences through content in local Indian languages.
In 2024, digital media overtook television for the first time and became the largest segment of India’s media and entertainment sector, contributing 32% to total revenue – ₹802 billion (about $9.13 billion), per EY. report (PDF) Released in March. The report also estimates that digital media will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.2% between 2024 and 2027.
This growth potential has led players like Kuku to experiment with new formats including recent Popular Microdrama – Short, sequential video stories designed for mobile viewing. This format has become popular across Indian startups Even attracted the attention of global forumswith meta Recently launched its own microdrama series Aimed at the Gen Z audience in the country.
Founded in 2018, Kooku first gained popularity among Indian content consumers with its audiobook offering through Kooku FM. Since then, it has expanded its product suite and now operates two major platforms: Kooku TV, which presents long-form stories as bite-sized episodes in a vertical format, and Kooku FM, which focuses on audio-first shows. The startup said the platforms offer content in more than eight Indian languages and have crossed 10 million paid subscribers, up from two million at the time of its final round in 2023.
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Without disclosing actual financial figures, Bisu said the startup has seen a 2x increase in average revenue per user and a 10x increase overall since its last funding. He said about 80% of its customers are from non-metropolitan cities.
About 60% of Kuku’s customers are male and 40% female, Bisu said, adding that most customers are between the ages of 25 and 35.
KuCoo offers access to its platforms through paid subscription plans, including ₹199 (about $2) per month, ₹499 (about $6) per quarter, and ₹1,499 (about $17) per year. Bisu said the quarterly plan is the most popular among users.
Consumers spend an average of 100 minutes a day on Kooku’s platform, the founder said, with more than 90% of the startup’s customers remaining active month over month.
Kooku finds content through third-party content creators, and currently has around 10,000 creators on its board. More than 50% of them are from small towns and non-metro cities, Bisu said. He said the startup pays its creators around ₹400 million (about $4.5 million) monthly.
According to data AppFigures shared with TechCrunch, the Kooku FM app has led the way in downloads and consumer spend across the startup’s portfolio, which also includes Kooku TV, Kooku Bhakti (a devotional app featuring stories based on Hindu mythology), and Stories (focused on bite-sized microdramas).
By September, Kuku had recorded a total of over 229 million downloads, including 122 million for Kuku FM and 88 million for Kuku TV. Data from AppFigures shows that 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 saw more than 134 million downloads — a 533% year-over-year increase — and $1.9 million in consumer spending, a 156% increase, according to AppFigures data.
Bisu told TechCrunch that, in terms of consumption, Kuku TV is bigger than Kuku FM, accounting for more than 60% of total usage.
The Bengaluru-based startup has created a GenAI Studio to streamline content creation, use AI tools for multilingual translation and on-demand ad production. The studio includes software from AI companies including OpenAI and ElevenLabs, as well as some of Kukoo’s in-house tools.
“We’re focusing most of our attention on our own tools, because now we have a lot of our own data. We train those models with our own data and the output is actually much better than external tools,” Bisu told TechCrunch.
The startup does not use GenAI to produce content autonomously, but instead uses it to assist creators in developing audio and video stories for its platforms. The tools help generate titles, plots, scripts, dialogues and thumbnails, Bisu said, while the actual audio and video production is done manually.
He said that 70% to 80% of the work at Kuku is powered by GenAI, with the remaining 20% still done manually.
Without naming specific individuals, Bisu said the startup planned to use the new funding to enhance its content by bringing on celebrities, including film and television personalities.
Nevertheless, Kuku faces stiff competition from local rivals, notably Pocket FM, which offers a similar audio and visual storytelling format. Pocket FM has filed several copyright infringement lawsuits against Kuku. Recently, Delhi High Court restrained Kuku is stopping the release of new episodes of five controversial shows.
Bisu said the Pocket FM lawsuits were aimed at diverting investors’ attention. “Every time, whenever we raise funds, they (Pocket FM) go to some court and file a lawsuit. So this is not the first time,” Bisu told TechCrunch.
He added that KuCoo has a dedicated team that manually reviews all uploaded content to check for copyright violations. The startup has also developed tools to detect whether creators are uploading copyrighted or third-party content.
“Some of the money (from this round) will also be spent on improving these tools – we plan to invest in technology that can identify when a creator is using someone else’s work,” Bisu said.
AppFigures data shows that compared to Pocket FM, Kuku had higher downloads, but significantly lower in-app purchase revenue. While the majority of Kuku’s downloads and earnings come from India, Pocket FM gets 82% of its downloads from India but earns 98% of its revenue from outside the country, according to AppFigures.
While Kuku saw significant growth in both downloads and consumer spending in 2025, Pocket FM experienced a 21% decline in year-over-year downloads to $38 million, but a 61% increase in consumer spending to $100 million, according to AppFigures data.
That said, Kooku plans to use its latest funding to enhance its AI and data infrastructure, expand its workforce of 150 people by hiring new talent in technology and content, and deepen creator partnerships and scale in India and beyond. The startup is already testing its offerings in the Middle East and the US, with plans to expand extensively to the US in 2026.
