India’s Pocket FM raises $16m debt from Silicon Valley Bank

(From left) Pocket FM co-founders Prateek Dixit, Nishanth Srinivas, and Rohan Nayak

India-based Pocket FM, an audio over-the-top (OTT) platform, has raised US$16 million in debt funding from US-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the tech-focused financial institution recently acquired by First Citizens Bank.

The funds will be used to expand Pocket FM’s audio series library and ramp up hiring globally, the company said in a statement.

Funding details

• Funding amount: $16,000,000
• Lead investor: Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)
• Stage: Debt
• Source

Pocket FM offers more than 100,000 hours of content, including audio series, stories, novels, and podcasts in eight Indian languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bangla, English, Kannada, and Marathi.

It has 80 million users who cumulatively spend an average of more than 4 billion minutes monthly on the platform.

SVB made headlines in March due to its collapse, the effects of which have been felt across the global startup ecosystem. Weeks later, publicly listed First Citizens Bank completed its acquisition of the tech-focused bank.

More details