To fuel growth in the changed operating ecosystem, ShareChat is looking to raise $150-200 million as it plans on aggressive expansion because its Chinese counterparts and primary rivals TikTok and Helo applications have been banned by the government from operating in Indian markets.

Previously, ShareChat competed with ByteDance owned Helo application, merely after days, the ban was imposed on TikTok which is also owned by ByteDance. After that, the company launched a new short-video platform, ‘Moj’ as an alternative to it.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that development about Sundar Pichai-led Google comes just days after it had been reported that Satya Nadella-led Microsoft Inc had held discussions for potential investment into ShareChat.

Since the ban on TikTok’s operations in India, a stream of alternative short-video sharing social media platforms has witnessed exponential growth.

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How will it work?

The user needs to sing the national anthem which will then get converted into one of three traditional Indian musical instruments — the shehnai, sarangi, or bansuri, with the help of AI technology. For this to happen the user needs to log in to g.co/SoundsofIndia through their smartphone. After logging in, the user gets to hear a pre-recorded national anthem which they need to sing with the lyrics on the screen. Once done the user gets an option to choose the musical instrument as per their preference, and then get it converted. 

Google on its blog says, “We can’t wait to bring to you the culmination of this experience, so look out for something very special coming your way on 15th August 2020 — the 73rd anniversary of India’s Independence.”

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Maharashtra tops the country in COVID cases and the schools were closed earlier in June to prevent infections. Google and the Maharashtra Government have decided to provide this service free of charge. The initiative has been showered with plenty of support from the teachers as more than 150,000 teachers have registered within 10 hours of the launch of this plan.

Commenting on this partnership, Varsha Gaikwad, Education Minister of Maharashtra said, “Our goal is to make Maharashtra the most progressive state in education by making effective use of online resources, platforms, bandwidth, and technology, using the power of the internet to reach out to the masses and bridge the gap in education.”

Google has unveiled a new app called “Teach from anywhere” in the Marathi language which is predominant in Maharashtra. They give access to the digital classroom system by offering features like Google forms, Google classrooms and Google meet.

“Our teachers and schools have the huge responsibility in shaping the future of our new generation, and we continue to be honored to play a role in offering digital tools that can enable more teachers to help even more students stay firmly on their journey of learning, during these times and beyond,” said Sanjay Gupta, Vice President of Google.

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Google’s parent company, Alphabet has seen a drop in their revenue but still crossed the expectations of Wall Street. The revenue has been recorded to be $38.3 Billion in this quarter beating what was expected which us $37.4 Billion. It accounts for a 2% decline from the last quarter.

The revenue of YouTube and Playstore have seen a considerable rise of 35 percent accounting to $5.12 Billion and Google Cloud with $3.01 billion. “Customers are choosing Google Cloud to either lower their costs by improving operating efficiency or to drive innovation,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google.

He also said that when every business was affected by this pandemic and the economy became fragile, they saw the early signs of stabilization as users returned to commercial online activities.

Alphabet’s other ventures like Experimental X lab and Waymo self-driving have also seen a downfall in their revenue. It dropped from $162 million to $148 million.

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Google has received many requests to ban such ads as they are creating unnecessary confusion in these critical times. It has also banned the contents which offer miracle cures for the virus as it is against the vaccine production process.

Google stated that the contents that are not allowed to make money from ads include debunked conspiracy theories, such as the notion that the novel coronavirus was created in a Chinese lab as a bioweapon, that it was created by Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates, or that the virus is a hoax.

It has also announced that health care ads and contents about COVID-19 issued by the government and other authorized companies will only be posted in the search engine to prevent commotions in the medicine industry.

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Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google said that the funding will be focused on building products and services that are relevant to India’s unique needs and to empower the budding business in this journey of digital transformation. In addition to this, Google has also made a tie-up with Jio to develop an easily accessible smartphone with an optimized OS and play store. Sundar Pichai also said that the funding will be through the partnerships and operational, infrastructural investments highlighting that this is the reflection of their confidence in the future of India and its digital economy.

Silverlake, Vista Equity, General Atlantic, KKR, TPG and L Catterton, Intel, Qualcomm. Sovereign Wealth funds including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Mubadala from the United Arab Emirates and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia are some of the other investors who acquired stakes at Jio.

Totally, in its aim to make the company net-debt free, Reliance has raised 2.21 lakh crore through its right issue, stakes at Jio platform, and its venture with BP.

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The various sections include online native businesses, social impact projects, health, education, and agriculture. In this COVID situation, every business medium is digitizing and Google has stepped up to help in this process of making India digital. The fund will also be used to support the startups and tech companies which had worse effects due to the lockdown. 

According to a recent report by Datalabs by Inc42, there is an average of 22 percent layoffs in startups during this lockdown whereas there have been mass layoffs in companies like Ola. In this situation, this investment would be a huge advancement for the struggling ventures.

Besides, Google has also made a tie-up with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to help teachers teach their students via Google Classroom, Google meet, and various other Google applications. Google has also funded 1 Million dollars for Kaivalya Education Foundation to train around 700,000 teachers from low-income communities to educate through virtual teaching 

“I spoke about the new work culture that is emerging in the times of Covid-19. We discussed the challenges the global pandemic has brought to areas such as sports. We also talked about the importance of data security and cyber safety. I was delighted to know more about the efforts of Google in several sectors, be it in education, learning, Digital India, furthering digital payments, and more,” said Prime Minister, Narendra Modi in his Twitter handle.

For which Sundar Pichai has replied, “Thank you for your time, PM @narendramodi – very optimistic about your vision for Digital India and excited to continue our work towards it. Later today we’ll share our next steps on that journey at #GoogleForIndia.”

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