Fonos raises US$1.8M in funding to expand into podcasting

Vietnamese audio content platform Fonos has announced the completion of its US$1.8 million in Pre-Series A funding led by US media and technology VC North Base Media.

Returning and new investors, including AngelCentral, Vietcetera’s Vietnam Innovators Fund, and Orvel Ventures, also participated.

Fonos will use the funding from this round to expand into podcasting and content acquisition.

Founded in 2020 by Oscar Jesionek and Xuan Nguyen, the startup has established itself as the audio content leader in Vietnam, with over 2,100 exclusive pieces of content available on its app, including best-selling audiobooks, book summaries, and meditations.

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In addition to the extensive content library, its strength has been in successfully monetising the content. Fonos grew its revenues by seven times in 2021 and continues that trend this year. The company also claimed strong user growth with over 130,000 monthly active users in October.

For many months, the Fonos app has been the number one top-grossing app in the book category in Vietnam, both on the Apple and Android app stores. According to app revenue analysis tools such as data.ai, Fonos plays a significant part for the majority of audiobook sales in Vietnam.

Fonos aims to become a key podcasting player in Vietnam with multiple initiatives to be launched in Q1 and Q2 2023.

“I’m incredibly excited for Fonos to enter the podcasting market. We’ve been laser-focused on the audiobook market for the past three years to become the market leader. We’re now ready to take that same focus and apply it to the podcasting market,” said CEO Oscar Jesionek.

In September 2021, Fonos raised US$1.1 million in seed funding from Hustle Fund and iSeed, as well as investors from AngelCentral and other local angel investors.

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