Pocket Entertainment, the parent company of audio series platform Pocket FM, has elevated Umesh Bude to chief technology officer as the company ramps up its focus on using artificial intelligence (AI) for future growth.
In this role, Bude will oversee the end-to-end tech strategy for all Pocket Entertainment platforms, spearheading efforts to scale its products through next-gen AI solutions. This includes advancing the company's generative AI capabilities and building intelligent user experiences. He will continue to report to Pocket Entertainment co-founder Prateek Dixit.
“We are at a pivotal moment in our journey where technology and creativity are deeply intertwined. As we reimagine storytelling for the AI era, technology is the foundation,” Dixit said in a statement.
“Umesh's elevation is a reflection of our ambition to lead this transformation from the front. His leadership will be central to creating intelligent, emotionally aware experiences that push the boundaries of what storytelling can be” he added.
Bude joined Pocket Entertainment as Senior Vice President of Engineering in February 2024. Prior to this, he was with edtech major Unacademy for over three and a half years. He has also had stints at Oyo, Akamai, and Sun Microsystems. Bude has close to two decades of experience across engineering, data science, and platform security.
Pocket Entertainment stated that Bude has played a key role in scaling the Bengaluru-based startup's tech stack from the ground up.
“It’s a privilege to take on this responsibility at such an exciting time for Pocket Entertainment. I look forward to driving the next wave of innovation, where technology and AI are not just enablers, but storytellers in their own right” Bude said in a statement.
This move comes as Pocket Entertainment invests significant efforts in leveraging AI to accelerate its story production and build new capabilities that help its writers brainstorm, draft, and experiment faster.
This includes developing a 'future-ready' storytelling engine that helps them do more experiments to identify potential blockbuster shows and scale them to wider audiences. The company also allows writers to turn their stories into audio series on the platform with a single click through a partnership with AI voice cloning startup ElevenLabs.
In February, Pocket Entertainment also launched an AI-first comics platform Pocket Toons, making the firm's foray into webcomics.
The company was last valued at $750 million when it raised $103 million led by Lightspeed in March 2024. It has raised $196.5 million financing to date.
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