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Havish Gupta
Figuring Out • 4m
The Indian Startup Taking Over International Content In 2018, Rohan Nayak and Nishanth KS, two IIT Kharagpur alumni, along with Prateek Dixit. They had a simple idea. Create short audio episodes that people could listen to while multitasking. But turning that idea into reality wasn’t easy. They pitched 30 investors, and every single one turned them down. "Who even listens to audio content?"—That was the common response. Then came Lightspeed India and Tencent Holdings, who saw the potential and wrote them a $5.6 million cheque. With this, Pocket FM launched as a freemium platform, offering content in 8+ languages across multiple genres. The short, engaging episodes made it addictive, fueling rapid growth. By 2023, they had 100 million downloads on the Play Store. - FY23 Revenue: ₹176.36 crore - FY24 Revenue: ₹1,051.97 crore (6x growth!) That's not all! 88% of their revenue comes from subscriptions, while ads contribute just 8.5%. In 2024, they entered the novel industry with a $40 million investment, taking on competitors like Pratilipi. That same year, they raised $103 million from investors like Lightspeed, valuing the company at $600 million. Today, Pocket FM is the world’s largest audio series platform, available in 20+ countries, with 200 million listeners streaming over 12,369 years of content every month.
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