Headfone is an audio OTT platform that focuses on audio drama across fictional genres such as horror, suspense and romance. Operated by Diacoustic Labs, the startup was founded in 2017 by former Meta employees Prateem Khandelwal and Yogesh Sharma and is Bengaluru-based. The app currently offers content in Hindi and hosts around 800,000 content pieces, which have been growing at a 10% compound monthly growth rate. Headfone has 3 million monthly active users with an average daily time spent of 52 minutes per active user. The company has built a decentralised online platform where artists, writers, voice actors and sound engineers collaborate remotely to create content more time- and cost-effectively. It plans to use the new funds to diversify content offerings across languages and expand across genres. Headfone is a social audio platform where anyone can record, share, and listen to audio stories, with an emphasis on serialized content across multiple Indian languages. Founded in 2017 by former Facebook software engineers Pratham Khandelwal and Yogesh Sharma and based in Bengaluru, the app claims over 5 million Android downloads and more than 100,000 creators. Approximately 70% of its user base is distributed across Tier-II and Tier-III cities, where appetite for vernacular stories is driving growth. The platform highlights genres such as horror, fantasy and romance and emphasizes listener engagement that makes users part of the story. Headfone says it will use the new funding to fuel business and operations and expand its audio content ecosystem. Investors and the team point to strong engagement metrics and community-driven content as the basis for further expansion. Headfone, run by Diacoustic Labs Pvt Ltd and founded in January 2018 by ex-Facebook employees Pratham Khandelwal and Yogesh Sharma, is a social audio platform focused on vernacular audio content. The app lets users listen to short stories, talk shows, podcasts and radio channels, and enables creators to record, play back and share voice content that can be broadcast to listeners for likes, comments and followers. Headfone uses machine learning to build a personalized audio feed and recommendation engine to improve the listening experience. The company reports about 500,000 Android downloads, an active user base of roughly 50,000 users, and an average listening time of about 50 minutes per day. With the new funding, Headfone plans to build its team, further develop its recommendation technology, scale its community across India, and grow its user base. The startup previously raised seed support in 2018 when it participated in Axilor Ventures' 8th accelerator batch.

Total raised

$14M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Apr 2022