Gaana draws $40 mn debt funding from Tencent Cloud Europe

Gamma Gaana, the Times Internet backed company that owns and operates music and podcast streaming platform Gaana, has raised Rs 293.6 crore (approximately $40 million) in debt funding from returning investor Tencent Cloud Europe. 

The Mumbai based company issued 47,050 Series C unsecured optionally convertible debentures (OCDs) at Rs 62,397.53 per share to raise the amount, regulatory filings showed. 

The round follows a Rs 375 crore debt financing round from Tencent Cloud Europe and Times Internet in September last year. Tencent Cloud Europe invested around Rs 300 crore and Times Internet put in Rs 75 crore at the time. 

Tencent Cloud Europe is a cloud service unit of Chinese conglomerate Tencent Holdings. 

In February 2018, Tencent Holdings led a $115 million equity funding round in Gaana, along with Times Internet. 

Tencent is the majority shareholder of Tencent Music Entertainment, China’s largest music streaming business. It also operates Joox, a music streaming platform in Southeast Asia. The company has invested in a handful of Indian firms in recent past including Udaan, Khatabook, DoubtNut and Pratilipi. 

After the ban on popular short video platform TikTok last year, Gaana launched HotShot, its own short video app. With a music library of 45 million songs and 5,000 user-generated podcasts per month in multiple genres and languages, Gaana had about 185 million monthly active users as of September 2020.  

During the initial Covid-19 related lockdowns in the country, the company said it recorded a 10-13% surge in the consumption of music and podcasts. 
 
In India, Gaana competes with companies such as heavily funded JioSaavn, Bharti Airtel's Wynk and Hungama besides international music streaming services such as Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music.