Social music startup Smule raises $20M from the VC arm of Indian media conglomerate The Times Group, after raising $54M in May 2017
App maker turned music social network Smule has raised another $20 million. The latest round follows a $54 million raise in May of last year, led by Tencent … Tweets: @timesbridge Tweets: @timesbridge : .@Smule joins @Airbnb @Coursera @Houzz @Uber and others in our growing portfolio of global companies who see India as a center of their global mission - and aren't leaving their growth/impact here to chance. #immerse http://techcrunch.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Smule has been raising on a steady cadence toward its social-network ambition: a $38M debt-and-equity round led by Adams Street Partners in 2015, then a $54M round led by Tencent in May 2017 at a reported $604M valuation, explicitly aimed at Asia. Three months ago it rebranded its Sing! Karaoke app to Smule, citing 50M monthly active users — the product is now the company name.
The new $20M comes not from a financial investor but from Times Bridge, the VC arm of The Times Group, which frames Smule alongside Airbnb, Coursera, Houzz and Uber as global companies treating India as central to their mission. That makes this a strategic distribution check, not just growth capital.
First-order effects
- Smule gains an India-connected backer whose parent group runs one of the country's largest media networks — Times Internet reported 450M+ monthly users across ~36 news, video, and music properties — giving the 50M-MAU app a potential local promotion channel.
- Times Bridge adds Smule to a portfolio of US consumer platforms (Airbnb, Coursera, Houzz, Uber) it positions around India-first growth.
Second-order effects
- Tencent's 2017 Asia-expansion thesis now has a local execution partner: Smule can pair Tencent's regional capital with The Times Group's owned media reach, pressuring rival social-music and karaoke apps on distribution rather than features.
- For Times Internet itself, which says its biggest challenge is converting its 450M-user audience into revenue, backing engagement-heavy apps like Smule is a way to monetize attention it already owns.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, US consumer apps entering India will increasingly take strategic checks from media conglomerates rather than pure venture firms — trading equity for built-in audiences — a bridge model The Times Group later extends to domestic startups like ShareChat's parent Mohalla Tech, where it invested alongside Google and Temasek.
- Social music consolidates around players who control both the app and the promotional surface, making standalone karaoke apps dependent on platform or media partnerships to compete.
The trend: US consumer platforms are funding their India expansion through strategic media-group capital, as conglomerates like The Times Group convert audience reach into portfolio stakes.