Times Internet-owned Gaana raises $115 Mn round from Tencent

Chinese Internet conglomerate Tencent Holdings and Times Internet have invested $115 million into music streaming platform Gaana. The Chinese firm Tencent will acquire a minority stake in the music streaming app.

So far, Gaana is completely owned by TIL and hasn’t raised capital externally.

The company will use the capital to invest in artificial intelligence to help personalise user experience and develop its subscription service.

The music application has a repository of millions of songs in 24 Indian and 117 world languages songs. Tencent owns the largest stake in China’s music streaming platform QQ Music. It also operates Joox, a leading music streaming platform in Southeast Asia.

Gaana claims to have crossed over 50 million monthly active users. It also claims to the biggest installed base amongst music streaming apps with 92 million downloads.

The company has continually climbed an upward demand curve and claimed staggering 350 per cent growth in terms of monthly active users over the past two years.

Also Read: With 92 Mn downloads, Gaana claims to cross 50 Mn monthly users mark

In September last year, it launched a range of industry-first features like- ‘Gaana originals’ a platform for independent music; exclusive content from both Bollywood movies & regional markets to cater to its diverse audience and to showcase non-film work from Bollywood and regional artists.

Its rival Hungama claims to have crossed 50 million monthly active users worldwide in 2015 while Airtel’s music streaming application Wynk Music had also crossed 75 million application downloads.

Besides Hungama and Wynk, Gaana competes with Saavn, Apple Music and BookMyShow amongst others. Last year, Saavn had on-boarded two strategic investors – Senvest Management and global entertainment company Endeavor.

BookMyShow also forayed into audio entertainment with Jukebox in June last year. The service allows users to download free music through music credits earned by them while booking movie and event tickets at BookMyShow’s platform.

Besides these streaming services, Apple Music had also partnered with A R Rahman to set up 2 Mac Labs at the KM Music Conservatories (KMMC) based in Chennai and the upcoming campus in Mumbai.

The funding story was first reported by Mint

Note: We have changed the headline and content after getting updates on the development