ShareChat Receives Fresh Funding of $40 Mn From Existing Investors

ShareChat, a social media platform that operates in Vernacular language raises $35-40 million from its internal round of financing by its existing investors which included Lightspeed India. The information has been out from people who claimed to have details of the particular transaction. The financing on the platform saw its boost after a ban was declared by the Government of India on 59 Chines Apps including TikTok, which led to the sudden inclination towards other social media apps operating in local languages like ShareChat and its newly-launched short video app Moj. 

“The infusion was done to gain momentum after the ban of 59 China-linked apps,” said one of the sources, requesting anonymity. “In the absence of apps such as TikTok, the company is hoping to capitalize on the gap that has been created.”

ShareChat can now increase its adoption among its customers along with Moj, because of the internal round of Financing, not only that, the platform also expects to cross around 50Mn downloads in the next few weeks. Just after TikTok was banned in India, ShareChat launched a short video App Moj to counterattack TikTok’s user experience in India. With all the features of TikTok, Moj along with other short video apps like  MX TakaTak, DailyHunt’s Josh, Roposo, Trell, Chingari, and Mitron have experienced a  huge jump in the number of downloads as well as in the total number of usages. 

ShareChat with a view to getting larger investment has assigned Morgan Stanley as its banker whose primary function will be to assist in raising a large sum of money from potential investors. The round size of the investment can cross $100 million. “The company is also exploring a potential set of new investors who can infuse more capital, but it is unclear if this will happen because monetization remains to be a challenge for ShareChat,” said the person mentioned above. He requested anonymity as he’s not authorized to speak to the media.

As Share chat gets its round of investment from its existing investor Lightspeed India, it is still uncertain if the company could get any backing from Chinese investors like Shunwei and Xiaomi who though have participated would require prior approval from the Government of India as per the newly amended policy. 

Share Chat in its last round of financing could raise a capital off  $100 million from Twitter and from its existing backers in August 2019. The Bengaluru based social media platform also has other investors like TrustBridge Partners, Xiaomi, Shunwei Capital and India Quotient on its list.

Similar to Share Chat other social media apps on the same platform are also looking out towards investment like Trell who is in a round of discussion to raise $10 million. Mitron TV has too raised $2 million in a round led by Nexus Venture Partners