Pocket FM Doubles Revenue Run Rate to $500M as AI Powers 93% of Catalog

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Pocket FM, the Indian audio storytelling platform, has doubled its annualized revenue run rate to $500 million over the past year, up from about $250 million a year earlier and $430 million in April, as artificial intelligence now powers 93% of its overall catalog and 99% of its new content, co-founder and CEO Rohan Nayak said. Nayak said AI has made content production about 80 times cheaper, allowing 100 hours of content that once took about a year to produce to be made in a day, and its more than 550,000 creators now produce about 2.5 million hours of AI-powered content a year, against a total catalog of roughly 100,000 hours two years ago. The platform has built a library of more than 770,000 audio series and now has more than 250 million listeners across over 20 countries, with the U.S. its largest market at about 70% of the annualized revenue run rate; about $85 million of that run rate comes from ads and roughly $415 million from users paying to unlock individual episodes. The company said 96 titles have each generated more than $1 million in revenue, including 13 that have crossed $10 million, and that its 12-month revenue retention rate has risen to 76% from 44% two years ago. Parent company Pocket Entertainment is pushing its AI-driven model beyond audio: its three-month-old microdrama app Pocket Saga, available only in the U.S. with entirely AI-produced content, has reached an annualized revenue run rate of about $15 million, and the company plans to enter at least two more entertainment formats over the next five years while licensing stories into books, television and movies. Bengaluru- and Culver City-based Pocket Entertainment is in talks with investors about raising fresh capital, following a report that it is seeking $100 million to $120 million at a valuation of about $2 billion; Nayak did not deny the talks but said there is no immediate pressure to raise, and the company said it is profitable and generating positive cash flow on an adjusted basis without disclosing figures. Nayak also said Pocket Entertainment does not plan to go public in the next 24 months, keeping options open for an eventual listing in India or the U.S.

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Revenue run rate doubled to $500M with 250M listeners and 96 titles each generating over $1M, reflecting strong end-user demand for its audio content.

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