Globe, ABS-CBN, Summit Media join $5M funding round for livestreaming app Kumu

MANILA, Philippines – Kumu Holdings Pte. Ltd., the company behind Philippine livestreaming app Kumu announced on Tuesday, April 14, it raised $5 million in its Series A funding round. 

Leading the round is Singapore’s Openspace Ventures, which also led funding for Indonesian ride-hailing firm Go-Jek in 2015, with recent reports giving it a valuation of $9 billion. Openspace’s first investment in a Philippine company was with e-commerce platform BeautyMNL. 

Filipino investors in the round include the Gobi Core Philippine Fund; Kickstart Ventures, the corporate venture capital firm of Globe Telecom; ABS-CBN; and Foxmont Capital Partners and Summit Media, which led a funding round for Kumu worth $1.2 million  back in December 2018. 

With the funding, Kumu will be scaling up its current operations. The company says that the app has at least 3 million registered users now, with almost one hour of average daily usage from a “mostly Gen Z and millennial userbase.” About 25,000 livestreams are broadcast on Kumu each day and has shown solid performance in the Philippines, Canada, US, and other countries, the company reported.

About 100 of its livestreamers are said to earn at least P20,000 each month. 

“We are betting on the exponential growth of the Philippines’ digital GDP while optimizing a user experience that is razor-sharp focused on Gen Z’s and millennials’ attention spans. Gamifying authentic connections has been one of the most enjoyable developments on the app,” said Kumu co-founder Roland Ros.

Kumu will also be using new capital to roll out new features such as a “hybrid AI/community-driven live commerce platform,” which the company said “will allow fans to purchase products while watching their favorite livestreamers,” helping the streamer earn more. – Rappler.com