U.S. market ranks first in daily listening time with 10 million registered users
With impressive numbers like over 20 million transactions in 2023, a global listener base spending an average of over 115 minutes daily, and over 75 billion minutes of streaming worldwide, Pocket FM’s online storytelling platform is creating a great story of its own.
Founded in 2018 the audio entertainment platform is filling a gap, creating a new entertainment category in the form of audio series. Through serialized audio storytelling it is now the leader in personalized audio entertainment.
To achieve its high entertainment position, the startup over the past five years built the largest repository of exclusive audio series with 100,000+ hours of content. It offers 2,000+ exclusive audio series and over 400,000 episodes across genres and languages—establishing a loyal audience.
“We identified an unexplored space in the entertainment industry driven by an increasing demand for audio fiction and crafted a playbook to address this opportunity across every key market,” said Rohan Nayak, CEO and Co-Founder of Pocket FM. “Our robust content library of audio series and a strong consumption behavior on the platform is shaping the future of entertainment”.
Having surpassed $150 million ARR, the company is growing at 57% QoQ, attracting funders Lightspeed with participation from private equity firm StepStone Group. This latest round will fund U.S. market expansion and plans for entry into Europe and LATAM markets, while bringing its total funding to date to $196.5 million.
In addition, the entertainment company is building a strategy around generative AI, for automation, content curation, production, and distribution. As it scales its entertainment content offerings, it will build AI-powered personalized recommendations that enhance the overall user experience—which U.S. listeners embraced when it entered the market in the last quarter of 2022.
The U.S. market reached revenue of over $100 million ARR, while this segment’s base rose to 135 minutes of listening daily which is the most engaged segment on the global platform.
Such rapid growth was achieved in part through its blockbuster hit, Insta Millionaire, which has over 187 million plays with a length of 225 hours. By embedding the storytelling elements with a layer of content personalization in the longer format, Pocket FM saw the emergence of “binge listening” as a consumption habit—reflected in the series’ 1384 episodes to date.
“What sets Pocket FM apart is its vision to set up a sustainable and profitable business, backed by its unique pricing strategy. It emerges as a great reference for the entertainment landscape, with its capability to demonstrate strong unit economics. They are not just building a new category but democratizing the entertainment landscape with a tech-driven approach,” said Harsha Kumar, Partner at Lightspeed.
