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ShareChat (Mohalla Tech Pvt Ltd), a social media company, has closed its $520-million multi-tranche funding round, raising the company’s valuation to $5 billion.
The company raised the first tranche of $266 million in December 2021 from Alkeon Capital, Temasek, HarbourVest, Moore Strategic Ventures and India Quotient. Post the acquisition of MX TakaTak earlier this year, the company raised the second tranche of $255 million from Google and Times Group along with the participation of Temasek.
The company had entered the unicorn club last year, and raised $913 million in 2021 alone. ShareChat (Mohalla Tech) runs short video platforms, Moj and TakaTak, along with the social media app, together catering to over 400 million users.
ShareChat said it has focused on monetising various platforms in 2021 and has seen its revenue surge. The company has built monetisation channels beyond advertising such as virtual gifting and video commerce. Virtual gifting is said to be witnessing good adoption on the ShareChat app, with the business line witnessing $50-million ARR, and is expected to more than double by year-end.
In 2020, ShareChat launched Audio Chatrooms feature, which is now recording 2 billion minutes of audio streaming every month. Further, since its launch in July 2020, Moj is said to have garnered over 3X daily active users and 2X daily time spent per user compared to its nearest domestic competitor, the company said quoting App Annie data from May 2022. In recent months, Moj is said to have also become a key social commerce platform in the country through its exclusive partnership with Flipkart.
Talking about the latest funding round, Ankush Sachdeva, CEO & Co-founder, ShareChat and Moj, said, “We are excited to announce the closing of our funding round and adding Google and The Times Group to our cap table. We are also happy and grateful to see Temasek reaffirming its faith in us for the third time in a year. Despite strong headwinds, it is reassuring to see investor confidence in ShareChat’s efforts and potential to grow further. Over a year ago, we turned unicorn, and since then, we have been scaling and innovating at an exhilarating pace, further refining our offerings and expanding our operations. The coming year will be about capitalising on the scale and building robust revenue models. We are committed to empowering every Indian by providing platforms to share experiences, discover new opportunities, showcase their talents and make their passion a means to a livelihood.”
Founded in 2015 by Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh and Farid Ahsan, ShareChat has several social media brands under its portfolio, such as ShareChat App, Moj, and TakaTak. Today ShareChat has over 180 million monthly active users spread across the country, Moj has monthly active user base of 160 million. Recently, ShareChat announced a strategic merger with MXTakaTak, bolstering its short video ecosystem to 300M MAUs and 100 million creators.
Investors in ShareChat include Temasek Holdings, Google, The Times Group, Alkeon Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures (MSV), Harbourvest, India Quotient, Mirae-Naver Asia Growth Fund, Tiger Global, Snap, Twitter, Lightspeed, and SAIF Partners (now Elevation Capital), among others.
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