Audio series platform Pocket FM lets go of around 200 writers

Pocket FM claims to offer over 100,000 hours of content, including over 2,000 exclusive audio series and more than 400,000 episodes.

Audio entertainment platform Pocket FM on July 27 said it has let go of some of the writers for its US-based shows. This is part of the company's efforts to optimise costs and better allocate resources within its current projects.

Pocket FM did not disclose the number of writers who were let go. However, Moneycontrol has learnt that around 200 contractual writers have been impacted by this move.

"We have recently had to part ways with some of our writers for US-based audio series to align our resources with our current show pipeline. These changes are typical in the content creation industry and do not reflect on the company's overall health" a company spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that the Bengaluru-based startup is in a "strong growth phase with robust revenue signals", and is accelerating hiring efforts across regions. The Morning Context first reported this development.

Founded in 2018 by Rohan Nayak, Prateek Dixit, and Nishanth Srinivas, Pocket FM raised $103 million in Series D funding at a valuation of $750 million in March.

The firm said it will use the funds raised to expand into Europe and Latin America markets as well as strengthen its presence in the United States. Pocket FM has raised a total funding of about $196.5 million to date.

Pocket FM offers serialised audio content across multiple genres. It claims to offer over 100,000 hours of content, including over 2,000 exclusive audio series and more than 400,000 episodes.

This content spans across genres such as romance, drama, thriller, fantasy, and science fiction in English and Hindi and several Indian languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, and Marathi.

The service offers consumers free access to a few episodes every 24 hours. To access more episodes, users can purchase virtual coins to unlock them, a model that is quite prevalent among several prominent mobile games.

The company claims that it has over 130 million listeners across the world who are spending an average of over 115 minutes every day.

Pocket FM has clocked an annualised revenue rate (ARR) of $150 million across the world as of December 2023. Of this, more than $100 million came from the United States.