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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On June 29, Moj made its debut on Play Store. It was the same day when the Indian government had banned Chinese-origin 59 apps, including popular video-sharing app TikTok. With this, Moj (except Aarogya Setu) becomes the first privately-held app to cross five crores download mark in recent times.

It’s worth noting that the InMobi-owned short video app, Roposo, has 70 million-plus downloads, but the company has been there on Play Store for more than a year. Other apps in the segment include MX TakaTak, Mitron, Trell, DailyHunt’s Josh, and Chingari.

While TakaTak has been downloaded over 33 million times, Mitron has close to 23 million downloads. At present, Josh has 28 million downloads whereas Trell and Chingari downloads figures are somewhat around 20 million.

The quick downloads of the apps mentioned above are not surprising because TikTok and other Chinese apps have left over 400 million users up for grabs for the desi clones.

After the ban on TikTok and other Chinese short video apps, ShareChat, MX TakaTak, and Josh didn’t find much trouble in driving downloads as their core products were used by people who have been looking for alternatives.

To scale up Moj and strengthen its grip on the vernacular social networking segment, ShareChat recently raised $35-40 million in a financing round from existing investors. Last month, Entrackr had exclusively reported the internal round.

ShareChat has also assigned Morgan Stanley as its banker as it looks to raise a larger amount of money from new investors. Sequoia and Microsoft are reportedly in preliminary conversations to invest in the Bengaluru-based company. 

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The sources said, owned by Bytedance, TikTok opened an office in Australia in recent weeks and offices of both the Home Affairs and Attorney-General are discussing TikTok’s operations.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government was “having a good look” at TikTok. Morrison told Melbourne radio station 3AW on Friday that “If we consider there is a need to take further action than we are taking now, then I can tell you we won’t be shy about it”.

Last week, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern posted a video with an impersonator on the highly popular social media app.

Separately, Labor Senator Jenny McAllister, the chairwoman of a parliamentary inquiry into foreign interference through social media, has identified TikTok as needing further scrutiny, noting 1.6 million young Australians using the app.

She told ABC radio, “Some of these approaches to moderating content might be inconsistent with Australian values”.

“For example, removing material about Tiananmen Square, or deprioritising material about Hong Kong protests,” she added, referring to student protests in Beijing in 1989 and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong over the past year.

Company records seen by Reuters showed two of the three directors of the new Australian TikTok operation are senior executives of Chinese parent company ByteDance.

TikTok Australia general manager Lee Hunter, who was recruited from Google in June, has written to Australian politicians saying TikTok was “being used as a political football.”

Adding TikTok Australia’s data was stored securely in Singapore and the United States the letter said, it was “critical you understand that we are independent and not aligned with any government, political party or ideology”.

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Due to the ban of TikTok, the influencers have shifted to alternate platforms like Youtube, Instagram, Roposo, and Sharechat. 55 percent of them have made Instagram their primary platform after the ban. Roposo is a short video maker app resembling TikTok and is now proposing challenges for the users with cash prizes to promote the app. Roposo is fast developing and is becoming people’s most preferred app in recent times.

Influencer.in, an influencer marketing platform, has released “Influencer Marketing report 2020.”  The survey contained feedback from around 810 content creators from our country. Most of them are around the age group 18-30 specializing in lifestyle, food, travel, and fitness platforms.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these influencers have seen tremendous growth. Many brands have partnered with such influencers to promote their brands. But travel and fashion bloggers have seen a downfall in their endeavors due to this lockdown.

The dominating fields apart from gaming, fitness, food, and fashion are E-commerce, healthcare, Edu-tech with e-commerce holding 50 percent of the market.

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The subsequent report centers around two measurements: the compassion + emulatability – the (e2) list and the influencer list (i2) which is an amalgam of recognition, affability, trust, substance, and fun.

The e2 Index: Empathy or Emulatability

The e2 Index for any VIP decides the business estimation of the VIP’s popularity: it is the capacity of the said superstar to get the fan or the supporter to act a lot of like the legend, needing to resemble him/her, to appear as though him/her and to display indistinguishable brands from him/her.

TikTok devotees don’t exactly admire their legends similarly as fans ordinarily admire big names in Bollywood or cricket They do admire them for entertainment only and diversion, however, don’t believe them to be good examples, be it for dress and adornments or hairstyling and cosmetics.

Sure, the TikTok legends are enjoyable to follow, yet they don’t set principles for yearnings. The TikTok legends toll far and away more terrible when we take a gander at their capacity to sell through even motion pictures and music. Their sympathy and trust scores are somewhat normal, drastically lower than film and sports big names.

When attempting to sell items like a portable or a motorbike or state a cash item like a charge card or comparative, the emulatability score of top TikTokers is, best case scenario lukewarm. Similar scores of Bollywood and top cricketers are a lot higher.

To the top scorers on the e2 Index:

Jannat Zubair leads on the compassion traits that check how much the supporter or fan needs to resemble the influencer. Zubair top-scored on being the most looked after for her informing on getting dressed, selection of embellishments, hair-styling, and make-up. Avneet Kaur was runner up.

“The e2 Index of top TikTokers trails superstars from Hollywood and cricket enormously. Their adherents are their fans, however, would prefer truly not to resemble them in dress, appearance, manner, or taste. Our comparable examinations on Bollywood stars show, on a normal 20-25% higher scores,” says Sandeep Goyal, boss coach, IIHB. “This hence changes over into lower-income age potential from brands for the TikTok clinchers.”

Awez Darbar leads by a long shot on the emulatability characteristics. Tops as the best wellspring of exhortation on motion pictures, music, acquisition of individuals use gadgets like portable and for purchasing a bicycle.

All TikTok influencers pass ineffectively on cash matters. Adherents don’t believe their budgetary counsel to be of much worth. Scores of Top TikTokers on different buys, the two mobiles, and bikes are poor as well.

“The scores on the capacity to sell an unmistakable item are shockingly even lower. Emulatabity of the influencers as a trustworthy hotspot for informing on buys again trails the sell-through intensity of Bollywood by a 50 percent edge or increasingly dependent on our past investigations,” includes Goyal.

The IIHB Report additionally takes a gander at the properties that help assemble FRED – recognition, significance, regard, and separation for India’s most-followed TikTokers, every one of whom had amassed a huge number of impassioned adherents.

Every one of the top TikTokers has broken down more than 32 key qualities, running from dependable to effective to in vogue, and from engaging and connecting with fun and cordiality. The influencer file showed up at considers totaled numbers that rate the individual TikTok superstar on recognition, amiability, trust, substance, and fun. The report likewise has ‘trait stacks’ made as ‘word mists’ for every one of the Top TikTokers for a one-look evaluation of their key guarantees.

“I for one locate the whole TikTok clan very interesting. Practically every one of them is little towners with enormous supplies of ability. Also, aspiration. What’s more, determination. To be completely forthright, the inventive yield of the greater part of them was entirely normal and absent a lot of artfulness. Be that as it may, at that point who are we to pass judgment?” closes Goyal.

All TikTok pioneers score high on being engaging, which without a doubt was the explanation behind their fan following running into millions. They are additionally observed to be attractive, a la mode, in vogue, and with huge amounts of loot. Strikingly, adherents felt the Top 10 were rich – a very optimistic depiction that set these influencers up in place of worship with their clans.

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The move from the Government of India came after a bloody clash that took place between forces of the two nations in which 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, UC Web mobile browser, Tencent Holdings Ltd, WeChat messaging app, are some of the prominent names among the 59 apps that were banned. Indian government while stating the reason behind the ban, raised a concern on the privacy and security of Indian nationals but the whole thing has got a different picture. The ban would let Indian homegrown companies gain a market in India, where half a billion population has access to the internet. The ban will also give these Indian companies a competitive advantage over foreign giants like Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc who are in the race to compete and make their mark in the world’s largest digital hub. 

“It was a rocket ship instant for the country’s app startups,” said Naveen Tewari, founder of the start-up that owns Roposo. He added, “We have a viable chance to become the world’s fourth technology hub after the U.S., China, and Russia.”

InMobi, a digital advertising start-up and also the brainchild of Naveen Tewari bagged a capital from global names such as SoftBank Group in its earlier years. Peter Thiel, known to be a co-founder and billionaire which backed Glance, later acquired Roposo in the month of November.

Roposo is almost a duplicate copy of TikTok with all the features that give users a good reason to download the app. It comes with Bollywood music, humor minus the ribaldry, pranks, fashion, and even jokes about the coronavirus pandemic. It is an app which very beautifully portrayed by its founder is devoid of any indecency or vulgarity to the extent that it can be shared with one’s moms. Unlike TikTok which has been criticized for its content and features by women’s groups, users, and governments, Roposo is all ready to set an example of clean and viable content that ensures pure entertainment for the users without hurting any one’s sentiments, culture, and beliefs. 

TikTok is unresponsive towards the story and said that it was supposed to meet government stakeholders to clear any doubts surrounding the privacy and security concerns of the users under the Indian law.  The Chinese app has previously given importance in moderating the content and emphasized that it is strictly against the videos which bring people’s safety under a question or promote violence. Following the same line of thoughts, it suspended an account of a user who uploaded a video of acid attack and also mocked in its content. Indian Apps faced a lot of issues relating to finances and user-friendly interfaces, unlike Tiktok which enjoys an advantage on it.  Bytedance which backed TikTok was valued at more than $100 billion in May and gave the video-sharing app an edge over the other startups.

Still, the Indian Government’s ban throws open multiple, billion-user business models, said Manjunath Bhat, a senior director analyst at Gartner Inc. “India’s entrepreneurs didn’t lack talent, they were just short on ambition,” Bhat said. “The combined effect of the coronavirus lockdown and the app ban presents a never-before, never-again opportunity.”

Seeing the growing opportunity in the market after the ban on Chinese app many Indian players jumped in like Chingari (Hindi for spark), Mitron (meaning friends), and Bolo Indya (Tell me, India), all with Indian names aiming for better connectivity with the users. New apps also tried their luck like Moj which was just some weeks old. The scenario is somewhat similar in other areas too. Out of the 59 Chines Applications, there appeared the name of Cam Scanner which was also banned. The players now in the market are in a motive to capture customer’s minds, have three similarities between them the apps are made in India, the data is not leaked, and the contents are generally in regional languages. 

Many people are there in the pipeline to capture the Indian Market few among them being the followers of  Sri Sri Ravishankar who developed an app called Elyments, featured as one platform and an answer for WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Mukesh Ambani launched JioMeet, a video conferencing app developed to operate against the popular San Jose-based Zoom.

Sumit Ghosh, the cofounder of Chingari, says many of the China short video apps have adult content designed to grab attention and ensure they go viral. “In contrast, our algorithms are built to ensure trash will never trend on Chingari,” said Ghosh. Its videos are slow-dripped to users to check for offensive content. If multiple users complain, videos are pulled off, he said.

Chingari got its existence after Ghosh and his cofounder started working on the app in times when there was an abundance of data. Chingari was mostly accepted in smaller Indian towns who were in search of content that can be in their language and they can easily relate to it. With time, the app was developed at par with TikTok adding everything that can be a good match to the Chinese app. Chingari too has good news to share with the number of users accelerating from 3.5 million users to 17.5+ million users. The success rate of the app can be easily understood that a company will come into existence with the name Chingari Media Pvt. The process is on with corporate and equity structure, testing revenue strategies, and growing their eight-engineer team. Ghosh an overwhelmed founder is now flooded with a number of messages in his twitter account from TikTok influencers who marketed their products and services on TikTok and now want to be a verified user on Chingari. He says his startup is in “late funding talks”.

An example of the same is Trisha Girdhar who runs an influencer management agency in New Delhi had her bulk earnings from TikTok. The 22-year-old is now planning to shift her star clients and influencers from far-flung towns like Akola, Nabha, Katni, and Birati to Roposo and other platforms.

“Brands are looking seriously at our influencers,” said Girdhar who herself specializes in belly dancing videos and has a fan following on Roposo.

Roposo itself is getting a deluge of influencer marketing agencies and celebrities wanting to come aboard. It’s discussing contracts with celebrity users and content creators. It’s investing in camera filters and Indian themes. “This isn’t an opportunity just for entrepreneurs,” said Tewari. “Investors ought to be rushing over.”

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NIVEA, Through this campaign, aims to show, consumers that their loved ones how much they love, and care for, them, it also adds that such love and care, become more important in today’s hard times.

NIVEA has partnered with leading TV personalities and influencers, like Genelia Deshmukh and Anita Hassanandani, for this campaign. The image above is from NIVEA’s official TikTok account, where it has described the challenge open to all TikTokers

Speaking about the new campaign, Sachin Killawala, director marketing, NIVEA India, said, “We are living in uncertain and challenging times. Now more than ever is the time to show care and spread love. NIVEA stands for trusted care and protection. We want to encourage viewers to express their love and care to their loved ones in catchy and memorable ways on a fun platform like TikTok to bring this campaign alive.”

“We have received a very good response and participation from people so far. The activity has also helped us strengthen our beliefs of trusted care and protection with our consumers successfully,” he added.

Aditya Hitkari and Divya Palat, founders, Balancing Act Productions, who’re behind the campaign, said, “At Balancing Act, we enjoyed creating the music, lyrics, choreography, along with choosing the perfect blend of influencers, who could take NIVEA’s message of ‘Share The Care’ forward. In these times, we were proud to create something positive and happy.”

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