Kuku, an Indian storytelling platform backed by Google, has raised $85 million in fresh funding as it aims to scale its audio and video content offerings amid intensifying competition in the South Asian nation’s mobile-first content market.

The Series C round, led by Granite Asia (formerly GGV Capital), values Kuku at more than double its previous valuation to around $500 million, Kuku founder and CEO Lal Chand Bisu 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 secondary transactions, with some of Kuku’s early investors partially exiting by selling their shares to new investors. This includes Google, which held under a 2% stake and is now exiting entirely, Bisu told TechCrunch.

India, home to over a billion internet subscribers and around 700 million smartphone users, is experiencing massive growth in digital content consumption, driven by ultra-low data costs and seamless micropayments. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently remarked that 1GB of data in India costs less than a cup of tea. The country’s government-backed Unified Payments Interface (UPI) — a system that enables instant digital payments between bank accounts — has also made digital transactions 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 edge in reaching mass audiences through content in local Indian languages.

In 2024, digital media overtook television for the first time to become the largest segment of India’s media and entertainment sector, contributing 32% of total revenues — ₹802 billion (around $9.13 billion), per an EY report (PDF) released in March. The report also projects that digital media will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.2% between 2024 and 2027.

This growth potential has prompted players like Kuku to experiment with new formats, including the recently popularized microdramas — short, serialized video stories designed for mobile viewing. The format has caught on across Indian startups and even attracted the attention of global platforms, with Meta recently launching its own microdrama series in the country aimed at Gen Z audiences.

Founded in 2018, Kuku first gained traction among Indian content consumers with its audiobook offerings through Kuku FM. Since then, it has expanded its product suite and now operates two flagship platforms: Kuku TV, which presents long-form stories as bite-sized episodes in a vertical format, and Kuku FM, which focuses on audio-first shows. The platforms provide content in more than eight Indian languages and have surpassed 10 million paid subscribers, the startup said, up from two million at the time of its last round in 2023.

The startup saw 2X growth in its average revenue per user and 10x overall growth since its last funding, Bisu said, without disclosing actual financial figures. He noted that around 80% of its subscribers are from non-metropolitan cities.

Around 60% of Kuku’s subscriber base is male and 40% female, Bisu said, adding that most subscribers are between the ages of 25 and 35.

Kuku offers access to its platforms through paid subscription plans, including ₹199 (around $2) per month, ₹499 (about $6) per quarter, and ₹1,499 (approximately $17) per year. Bisu said that the quarterly plan is the most popular among users.

Consumers spend an average of 100 minutes daily on Kuku’s platforms, the founder said, adding that over 90% of the startup’s subscribers remain active month over month.

Kuku gets content through third-party content creators, and it currently has around 10,000 creators on board. Of them, over 50% are from small towns and non-metro cities, Bisu said. He noted that the startup pays around ₹400 million (roughly $4.5 million) monthly to its creators.

The Kuku FM app has led in downloads and consumer spending among the startup’s portfolio, which 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 had recorded over 229 million total downloads, including 122 million for Kuku FM and 88 million for Kuku TV. Kuku’s apps generated more than $4 million in consumer spending, with $2.8 million from Kuku FM and $1.3 million from Kuku TV, the data from Appfigures shows.

In 2025 alone, the startup saw over 134 million downloads — a 533% year-over-year increase — and $1.9 million in consumer spending, up 156%, per Appfigures data.

Bisu told TechCrunch that, in terms of consumption, Kuku TV is larger than Kuku FM, accounting for over 60% of total usage.

The Bengaluru-based startup has built a GenAI studio to streamline content creation, employing 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 Kuku’s in-house tools.

“We are shifting most of the focus towards our tools, because now we have lot of our own data. We train those models with our own data, and then actually the output is much better than outside tools,” Bisu told TechCrunch.

The startup does not use GenAI to autonomously produce content but instead employs it to assist creators in developing audio and video stories for its platforms. The tools help generate titles, plots, scripts, dialogues, and thumbnails, while the actual audio and video production is done manually, Bisu said.

He added 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 that the startup plans to use the new funding to enhance its content by bringing in celebrities, including film and television personalities.

Still, Kuku faces stiff competition from local rivals, most notably Pocket FM, which offers similar audio and visual storytelling formats. Pocket FM has filed multiple copyright infringement lawsuits against Kuku. Most recently, the Delhi High Court restrained Kuku from releasing new episodes of five disputed shows.

Bisu said that the lawsuits by Pocket FM were intended to distract investors. “Every time, whenever we do a fundraise, they [Pocket FM] go into some court and they file a lawsuit. So it’s 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 tools to detect whether creators are uploading copyrighted or third-party content.

“Some of the money [from this round] will also go toward improving these tools — we plan to invest in technology that can identify when a creator is using someone else’s work,” Bisu said.

Compared to Pocket FM, Kuku had more downloads but saw significantly lower in-app purchase revenue, Appfigures data shows. While India accounts for the majority of Kuku’s downloads and earnings, Pocket FM generates 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% year-over-year decline in downloads to 38 million, but a 61% increase in consumer spending to $100 million, per Appfigures data.

That said, Kuku 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 U.S., with plans to scale in the U.S. in 2026.