Filipino social entertainment platform Kumu has raised a Series C led by General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm with more than 40 years of experience scaling disruptive businesses internationally. Existing investors Openspace and SIG also participated.
This transaction marks the largest equity financing to date for a Filipino startup not founded as a subsidiary or spinoff of an established conglomerate. It also marks General Atlantic’s first investment in the Philippines.
“Kumu is rapidly emerging as a leading digital content community and social platform in the Philippines, as well as for the global Filipino diaspora,” says Sandeep Naik, Managing Director and Head of India & Southeast Asia at General Atlantic. “We believe an immense digital opportunity exists in the Philippines, a market that is hungry for content and ripe for disruption, with Kumu’s innovative live-streaming offering paving the way for the company’s continued growth as a broader online media platform. We are thrilled to partner with Roland, Rexy and the driven team at Kumu as they focus on empowering creators and transforming the Filipino digital ecosystem.”
Kumu was launched in 2018 as a live streaming app and has since amassed a base of over 10 million registered users and counting from over 55 countries. In that time, it has ranked as the No1 top grossing social app in the Philippines and top 10 in multiple markets including Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Its business model is driven by tools like virtual gifting, advertising, and e-commerce, which allow content creators to convert engagement into income.
“The first generation of social media was defined by passive engagement, where the platform wins through advertising, but all except the top 1 per cent of creators struggle to earn a living,” says Rexy Dorado, president and co-founder of Kumu. “We are early movers in this movement towards a genuine creator economy where anyone can earn a sustainable income from just a hundred true fans each.”
Kumu invests in experiences that enable audiences to engage more fully with the premium content that they love – while forming direct and authentic connections along the way – in ways they never could before. The company has co-produced the last two seasons of the hit TV show Pinoy Big Brother, and through Kumu, users are able to win a spot as a housemate, vote to evict or save their favourite contestants, and influence what happens inside the house in real time. Kumu has also teamed up with the top-grossing Filipino film director Cathy Garcia-Molina to produce a movie in which Kumu users can earn a spot as a co-star or as part of the film’s soundtrack.
“We are excited to put this new capital to work by investing not only in the best Filipino content, but beyond that, making Kumu the home for groundbreaking, innovative content formats that blur the line between content consumption and content creation,” says Dorado.
“We are less than one percent of the way to our goal,” says Roland Ros, Kumu’s founder and CEO. “Our team is thrilled to take on the challenge of creating a consumer internet champion in the Philippines. Billions of dollars are being spent on internet infrastructure, and you have a market of over 100 million people with a median age that is GenZ and Millennial, with affordable, 4G-capable smartphones. That together is a perfect playground for us to build a social platform at global scale that is founded upon deep engagement and positivity.”
The company has seen early signals of product-market fit beyond the Philippines, with non-Filipinos in the US and Europe gravitating to its unique brand of community engagement. Kumu has been recognised globally as a “Disneyland of social media” enforcing authenticity, positivity, and safety through its community-driven content moderation system.
