Nishanth KS

Cofounder of Pocket FM. Bringing stories and knowledge to the world with the power of voice.

[Rohan Nayak @RohanNayak2]

@PocketFM_App has now crossed $400M ARR. The first $200M took 6 years, the next came in just 12 months. AI changed everything for us.

When we started Pocket FM, the idea was to build a new entertainment format - bingeable, bite-sized audio series. We built this category in India, then scaled it to the US and Europe and today it’s part of mainstream entertainment across 20+ countries.

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 enables creators to go from a raw idea to a fully dramatized series in minutes, while allowing us to rapidly identify potential blockbusters and adapt stories across languages and cultures almost instantly.

Content creation has exploded on Pocket - 300,000+ creators are now producing 80,000+ hours of content every month and this isn’t low-effort content; it’s storytelling people keep coming back to every day. AI isn’t replacing creativity, it’s unlocking it.

One creator story recently stuck with me, a first-time creator from Hyderabad whose show found an audience in the US and he made ~$50,000 (₹50 lakh) in a single month. This is democratization of storytelling.

Feels like this is just Episode 1. Many more cliffhangers ahead.

P.S. We are now free cash flow positive, at ~5% EBITDA.

[Lightspeed India @LightspeedIndia]

Congratulations to @bhanu_1729 (Co-Founder, @bhanzu_) and @RohanNayak2, @nishanthks91, and @prateek1190 (Co-Founders, @PocketFM_App) on their recognition in the @EntrepreneurInd 35 Under 35, Class of 2026!

India has never seen a more exciting generation of founders: building earlier, thinking more globally, and growing at an unprecedented pace.

Proud to back these industry leaders as they step confidently into their moment, transforming ideas into impact and making waves in India’s startup ecosystem.

[Mohit Sharma 'ज़हन' @Trendy_Baba_]

Congratulations, Team Super Yoddha, on 2000 episodes and becoming only the third show in Pocket FM history to achieve this milestone. #sridhar #rivansh #mohit_trendster #superyoddha #pocketfm #audioseries #entertainment

[Rohan Nayak @RohanNayak2]

Building a New Entertainment Category: From India to the World

100B minutes streamed. 200M listeners. 45M transactions.

Pocket FM has redefined storytelling, pioneering audio series as the next frontier of entertainment.

[Young Turks @CNBCYoungTurks]

🔴LIVE @ 5:30 pm | Zero to $150M revenue in 2 years, 10M users in the U.S., $100M fundraise—@PocketFM_App creates a playlist of its own as love for audio booms���

Catch @ShereenBhan in a chat with co-founders @RohanNayak2 & @nishanthks91 on carving a new entertainment category 🎙️

[Harsha Kumar @kumarharsha2212]

From Seed to Series D, Lightspeed has had the privilege to witness PocketFM's journey to $150M in revenue very closely. Their customer-centric approach and AI adoption have paved the way for global expansion. Read more about how they got here and what's next...
https://t.co/tWcnoZrlal

[Pocket FM @PocketFM_App]

Pocket FM #Rewind2023 is now live!

Over 75 billion minutes of streaming, with our listener community surpassing 130 million worldwide.

20 million transactions in 2023, closing the year with 2.5 million monthly transactions.

A quick summary.

[Nagarjun Dwarakanath @nagarjund]

This week’s India Today magazine on Bangalore Infrastructure

[Gagan Goyal 🇮🇳 @Goyal4Gagan]

At the airport I met a salesman who works with south 🇮🇳 based 'pickle & masala' brand

Me: what's the yearly sales?

He says: only 600 cr (😟face)

Me: Boss...this is great...why u said like this?

He says: 2000cr. toh hona acha

Me:😲🙈
(humare founders ka khoon kab kholega😤)

[Aviral Bhatnagar @aviralbhat]

On my trip a couple of weeks ago, I was getting tested at the airport for international travel

The lady taking the test was listening to something intently non-stop

Turns out she was streaming stories from PocketFM, while I was expecting YouTube or Gaana

Audio content is alive

[Lightspeed India @LightspeedIndia]

We’re thrilled to continue our support for the @PocketFMIndia team as they bring a wider range of audio content to their 40M+ users!🗣️📻 We’ve seen the app grow to become India’s Largest Audio OTT Platform, with over 100,000 hours of exclusive audio programming!

[ETtech @ETtech]

Pocket FM raises $22.4 million in Series B funding led by Lightspeed

https://t.co/cz4qFKfoRW

[Harsha Kumar @kumarharsha2212]

(1/9)Welcome to Path2PMF. I and @baboonzero are launching a series of knowledge sessions focused on the 0 to 1 journey of consumer startups where we will be hosting founders and practitioners behind the largest consumer platforms to share their insights.

[Rohan Nayak @RohanNayak2]

Pocket FM is currently amongst the top #5 apps in India.

Congratulations to the entire team at @PocketFMIndia. Our creator community has been instrumental in our growth by creating iconic audio shows, which are reaching similar scale to top video shows. A small thread 👇

[Nishanth KS @nishanthks91]

Thanks @kumarharsha2212 @dkhare @abhishekmgupta @miten @soaibgrewal @hchawlah for helping us push limits and set new benchmarks🙏🙏

Really humbled to be part of such a great team, @RohanNayak2 @prateek1190 @sanidhya_n @lalith0106

[Nishanth KS @nishanthks91]

It took us 18 months to go from 1k to 10k Downloads and only a 3 months next to become #1 Audio App in India.

A big testament to the potential and scale of Audio OTT in India📈📈

[Rohan Nayak @RohanNayak2]

Audio has finally arrived in India from being a non-existent category in 2019 to now becoming a mainstream content format.

Category creation is tough but we believed in the compounding power of rapid execution and iteration led feedback loops. We are now seeing the results (1/6)

[Vidit Aatrey @viditaatrey]

Makes me sad to see many bright folks around me working on very small market opportunities, just because they got an idea in a shower.
90% of building a large company is picking the right market, and still many folks spend the least amount of time there.

[Nishanth KS @nishanthks91]

Applications to Lightspeed #ExtremeEntrepreneurs2021 are now open! 6 weeks of fierce mentoring for startups in India and Southeast Asia. Groomed by legends from the star-studded VC galaxy. Apply now at https://t.co/7IF08mPE5E

[Nishanth KS @nishanthks91]

@sandeepssrin @Pranavenstein @deepakabbot @sandeepssrin Amazon does tons of things other than just distribution- like payment, fulfilment, support etc. Google Play is a hardly a comparison to that, you can't command 30% for a music service in which all it did was provide a tool to download the app