Pocket FM Claims EBITDA Profitability, Crosses $400 Mn ARR

Audio entertainment platform Pocket FM’s cofounder and CEO Rohan Nayak yesterday said that the company crossed the $400 Mn (₹3,720 Cr) annualised revenue rate (ARR) mark in March 2026.

A picture attached with Nayak’s post on LinkedIn implied that Pocket FM’s ARR stood at $430 Mn (₹4,000 Cr) last month, with a projected $450 Mn (₹4,185 Cr) expected by April 2026. This represents a 2X YoY jump from March 2025, when the platform’s revenue run rate stood at $198 Mn.

Nayak also claimed that the company is free cash flow positive at nearly 5% EBITDA, without specifying the period for the same. He, however, attributed the surge to AI-native “storytelling system”. 

“While building Pocket, we reimagined the entertainment playbook by pivoting to an AI-native storytelling system. At the core of this AI-native engine is our fiction writing co-pilot, trained on billions of minutes of engagement data. It… (allows) us to rapidly identify potential blockbusters and adapt stories across languages and cultures almost instantly,” added Pocket FM CEO.

Nayak also said that the company is operational in 20+ countries, adding that 3 Lakh creators produce 80,000+ hours of content every month on its platform. Pocket FM also claimed that it has 4.25 Lakh hours of content in its kitty, with users consuming 10,400 Cr minutes (173 Cr hours) of content yearly on its platform. 

Founded in 2018 by Nayak, Nishanth KS and Prateek Dixit, Pocket FM is an audio streaming platform that offers diverse content across multiple languages and genres. Backed by Lightspeed, Stepstone Group, Tencent and Times Internet, the startup has raised $196 Mn to date. It was last pegged at $750 Mn during its $103 Mn Series D fundraise in 2024.

The surge in numbers comes after years of firefighting by the company. After initially struggling with monetisation, the OTT platform last year laid off 75 employees. As if this was enough, rival Kuku FM’s cofounder and CEO Lal Chand Bisu last year also accused Pocket FM of running a smear campaign against his company. 

Last year, Inc42 also reported that Pocket FM was facing multiple lawsuits in the US, where about eleven “independent contractors” alleged that the company circumvented a number of US laws related to the classification of workers, wage provisions and working conditions. 

However, the tide changed after the company began leveraging AI to automate content production and providing writers with tools like ‘Copilot’ for scripting. The platform also uses AI for generating voices and automating sound design to speed up publishing and enhance engagement.

On the back of this, the company claimed that its revenues grew 68% to ₹1,768 Cr in FY25, up from ₹1,052 Cr in the previous fiscal. The startup is eyeing a piece of the Indian audio OTT space, which is projected to become a $3.2 Bn opportunity by 2030. 

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