As Pocket FM diversifies its offerings, the audio series startup on Tuesday launched an online novel reading platform, Pocket Novel, and announced an investment of $40 million (over Rs 300 crore) for the product.

During a year-long beta phase for the product, the company claims to have attracted over 150,000 writers, with some top performers earning monthly incomes exceeding $2,500 (about Rs 2 lakh), according to Moneycontrol.

The Bengaluru-based company is aiming for a $100 million annualized revenue run rate globally by 2025 for this product. The company said that readers last year made over 1 million transactions on the platform, buying entire novels or specific chapters written by community writers. Pocket FM says it wants to cultivate a community of 1 million writers and a library with 2 million novels by 2025.

Pocket FM now competes with self-publishing platform Pratilipi. In September last year, Disney Star partnered with Pratilipi for a content deal under which the media firm will develop fiction television shows from stories available on the platform.

Pocket FM sees this launch as a significant step in developing its intellectual property playbook. “We are building an ecosystem that shapes the essence of entertainment which specializes in discovering and distributing unique and unheard stories. These are adaptable across formats and geographies, creating a robust model with millions of audiences,” said co-founder Rohan Nayak.

Founded in 2018 by Nayak, Nishanth Srinivas and Prateek Dixit, Pocket FM offers long-form audio content across genres but much of it leans towards titillating. We have written about this in an earlier story: Pocket FM and the rise of steamy audio. The platform runs on a “freemium” model—users have access to a basic version of the platform for free, but have to pay for premium content or certain features.

In 2022, the company entered the US market and this move—along with its non-subscription, pay-as-you-go approach—has been largely successful. It counts Tencent, Tanglin Venture Partners, Goodwater Capital and Naver among its investors and has raised $109.5 million to date.

In December, Pocket FM said it recorded 20 million transactions last year and that over 75 billion minutes of audio content was streamed throughout the year on the platform.

In the 2022-23 fiscal, Pocket FM’s revenue from operations surged nearly eight-fold to Rs 131 crore compared to the previous year. Its losses narrowed to Rs 75.7 crore from Rs 171.6 crore in FY22.