MUMBAI: If India’s social media scene were a dancefloor, Eloelo just dropped the bass. The interactive livestreaming platform has raised Rs 114.3 crore (13.5 million dollars) in Series B funding led by Play Ventures, with participation from Kalaari Capital, MIXI Investments, Gameskraft Technologies, Griffin Gaming Partners, Waterbridge Ventures, Courtside Ventures, and Rocket Capital.
Eloelo, which describes itself as the “digital third place for Bharat,” is blending gamified livestreams, vernacular creator tools, and AI-led community-building into a potent entertainment cocktail and the party’s just getting started. This latest round takes the platform’s total funding to over 50 million dollars, following a 22 million dollars raise just last year.
Eloelo founder & CEO Saurabh Pandey says, “Eloelo is bringing the ‘Social’ back in consumer social platforms at a time when most platforms are built for passive content viewing. We believe that feeling connected to others is a primary human need of belongingness, and we are solving that across 8 languages by connecting Indians over interactive livestreams with games, chat & virtual gifting to express their emotions. With close to 400 Million aspirational middle India consumers, we believe this is a massive underserved market which needs India-first solutions. Extremely proud of our team that has built a platform that handles large scale concurrency in live streams in 8+ languages along with building gen-AI tools to empower creators. The Series B round shows us the belief that our existing and new investors place on our vision and execution ability”
And engage they have. With over 1.5 million paying users, the platform has already hit an annual revenue run rate of Rs 200 crore (23M dollars) within a year of switching on monetisation in May 2024.
What makes Eloelo stand out is its zero-ad, no-paywall strategy. The platform thrives entirely on microtransactions, virtual gifts, fan support, and gamified features allowing creators to directly monetise their audiences. Over 20,000 creators are already earning through the platform, streaming in over eight Indian languages.
Speaking on Eloelo’s revenue, Saurabh added, “We switched on monetization in May 2024 after 2-3 years of building the platform capabilities and scaling rapidly to hit PMF. In less than a year of launch, we are now hitting a 200 crore Annual revenue run rate ($23M ARR) with 1.5 Million paying users and are one of the fastest growing platforms in India at this scale. Consumer Tech in India is going through a massive shift away from ad-first models to micro payments, and we are happy to be powering this shift. Gone are the days when India was the MAU farm of the world – we are here to prove that the Bharat-first models have massive monetization potential as we track towards a 60M dollars run rate by end of this year. Beyond just numbers, the impact I am truly proud of at Eloelo is that more than 20,000 creators are now earning a livelihood by streaming and building their own digital communities”
With India’s interactive entertainment and gaming space now worth 12 billion dollars (out of a 25 billion dollars total M&E market), and growing at a 16 per cent CAGR according to Lumikai, Eloelo is positioning itself as a frontrunner in a post-advertising digital world.
The fresh capital will fuel the company’s next leg of growth: deeper generative AI use cases, further monetisation innovation, and international expansion targeting the Indian diaspora.
As Eloelo scales, it’s not just playing to win, it’s rewriting the rules of how India’s social entertainment is consumed, created, and cashed in.
