Eloelo, the social entertainment platform, is poised to take significant strides in both its monetisation strategy and international expansion with its recent funding.
Having raised ₹114.3 crore in a Series B round, led by Play Ventures and supported by several other investors, the company aims to leverage these funds to accelerate its growth.
According to Saurabh Pandey, the Founder and CEO of Eloelo, the funds will primarily be used to advance technology, expand internationally, and explore new use cases for their platform. “The usage of funds will primarily be in three areas: doubling down on technology, international expansion, and allied use cases,” said Pandey.
The company’s international focus will begin with the Indian diaspora across regions like the Middle East, LATAM, North Africa, and other Asian countries. “Eloelo is extremely popular with local language speakers who love to form digital communities,” Pandey noted. The platform’s existing success in southern and eastern Indian languages has shaped this approach, aiming to cater to these diaspora communities before expanding further.
Eloelo has set an ambitious target of achieving a ₹500–₹600 crore annual run rate by March 2026. Pandey is confident that the platform will not only meet this target but also improve its unit economics. “We hope to exit at a ₹500–₹600 crore annual run rate by March 2026,” he said, emphasising that profitability at the CM2–CM3 level is a key milestone for the company this year.
Despite facing a loss of ₹99.1 crore in FY24, Eloelo’s recent scale-up in revenue, particularly from May 2024 to March 2025, signals positive momentum. The company is now well-capitalised and prepared for rapid growth, Pandey added.
A key driver of this growth has been the platform’s focus on regional language support, with popular languages such as Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Punjabi leading the charge. The platform’s localisation strategy has allowed creators to engage directly with their fans, creating a unique form of monetisation. Instead of relying on ads or subscriptions, Eloelo uses an opt-in model, where users purchase virtual currencies to gift creators during live shows. “Eloelo is essentially an opt-in-based platform where you can continue to use it for free. But if you like it, you can buy our virtual currencies and gift them to creators,” Pandey explained.
The platform’s unique approach to creator-led engagement has propelled it to a ₹200 crore run rate, and with further localisation and more use cases, Pandey is optimistic about scaling to new heights. “We continue to double down on each of those [languages], launching more use cases,” he added.
Content retrieved from: https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/startup/eloelo-startup-funding-international-expansion-monetisation-strategy-19593409.htm.
