Kuku Technologies, the parent company of Kuku FM and Kuku TV, has confidentially filed draft IPO papers with SEBI for up to ₹3,500 crore, targeting a ₹15,000 crore valuation, while building a 1,000-member AI-led production unit ahead of the listing.
The Story
Founded in 2018 by IIT alumni Lal Chand Bisu, Vinod Kumar, and Vikas Goyal, Kuku built its business around India's growing appetite for short-form, mobile-first content — first through vernacular audio via Kuku FM, then microdrama through Kuku TV, launched in late 2024.
The microdrama format has already scaled to a $15 billion market in China, nearly three times the size of the country's traditional box office, and Kuku is positioning itself to capture a similar wave in India.
Ahead of its IPO filing, the company assembled a 1,000-member AI-led production unit combining writers, filmmakers, and engineers, aiming to industrialize content creation and bring costs down to 30-50% of China's levels.
The financial trajectory supporting the raise has been steep: revenue grew nearly sevenfold, from ₹240 crore in FY25 to over ₹1,400 crore in FY26, while the company remains close to operational breakeven.
Kuku TV now releases 150+ original shows monthly and has crossed 200 million downloads.
Business Insight
Kuku's bet on AI-led production reflects a broader shift in content economics: rather than scaling headcount linearly with content volume, the company is using AI to industrialize creative output, positioning itself to compete on cost and speed against both Indian rivals and China's more mature microdrama studios.
The FundForge Take
As Kuku heads toward a public listing, its real test won't be revenue growth — that's already proven — but whether an AI-accelerated production model can sustain content quality and audience retention at the volume needed to justify a ₹15,000 crore valuation in a format still new to Indian audiences.
