Music streaming industry has witnessed a significant growth in the last couple of years. Gaana has raised 3.75 Billion Indian Rupees (approximately $51m) in debt to help finance its growth. With more than 185million monthly active users, the Spotify rival has been successful in raising the cash after Tencent Stake in Gaana App increases.
TencentGaana Stake Percentage
The cash inflow is the result of Gaana Stakeholders – Tencent, and Instances Web, the other the majorityowner,optionally transforming debentures at a value of 63,761.93 INR (round $870) per share.The vast majority of this sum (nearly $41m) has been accorded over by Tencent’s European entity – Tencent Cloud BV. This contribution has had a direct impact on Tencent’s ownership in Gaana as TencentGaana Stake Percentage has improved to 33.4% now. The latest move has also changed the percentage share of other Gaana stakeholders. Instant Web’s take is now diluted to 60.18% while Pool owns a marginal 5.38%.
In 2018, Tencent Stake in Gana App was acquired via $115m investment in the company.CEO PrashanAgarwal, said, “Over the years, we have been relentless in our focus on consumer-centricity & foresight on product innovation. As one the biggest home-grown digital entertainment platforms in the past decade, we have invested heavily in building a comprehensive multilingual content library, and a solid AI-led technological foundation that makes content discovery and access convenient and enjoyable for every Indian.” Talking about Tencent’s ownership in Gaana, he further added, “Currently, 80% of all Gaana users are loyalists, i.e. they love the idea of being able to access songs, podcasts and short videos from their favourite artists in a single integrated experience. We believe this ability to deliver a strong value to entertainment-lovers will help us onboard 250 million new users in the next 12 months.”
Gaana is said to have one of the largest number of consumers of English, Hindi and Punjabi music. Also since 33% of content consumed on Gaana is regional languages, the ownership has taken up exclusive content in Punjab to keep up with the increasing competition. The alteration will help the ownership achieve increased engagements from users from across the nation and add to the cash flow.
