One of the very few Indian social media startups that have seem considerable and sustained success — Sharechat, is announcing a fresh $40 million Pre Series E fundraise. The round saw participation from Twitter, which is already an existing investor in the company. Others who participated in this round include Dr. Pawan Munjal, DCM Shriram Promoters Family Office, SAIF Partners, Lightspeed Ventures and India Quotient.
Sharechat will use this freshly raised capital to expand-Moj, the newly launched short video platform, that came in just as India decided to ban the erstwhile king of the genre — TikTok.
“Large parts of the fund have been earmarked for doubling down on investments made towards product development, growing its creator ecosystem and establishing partnerships with music labels,” the company said.
With the ever-expanding Indian social media market being massively dominated by American companies, Sharechat presents itself as a desi alternative. The startup has emerged as one of the very few social media platforms to have sustained in the cut throat market. With the completion of this round, the company has raised $264 million till date. Moreover, it has received backing from Twitter, which led the startup’s Series D funding round, and has helped the platform grow at an exponential rate.
Presently, ShareChat and Moj together claim to have over 240 million MAUs. Out of this, Sharechat itself has exceeded 160 million MAUs (monthly active users) in the past month with the average daily time spent by users on the platform at 31 minutes. While Moj has garnered over 80 million MAUs with users spending on an average about 34 minutes on the platform.
Now, it’s clear that the company would want to pour in more capital towards Moj, which is its short video platform. This is because TikTok proved that there’s a huge market for the content type in India, and its ban has left a void that Instagram’s Reels has tried to fill, but not really excelled at. Thus, there’s a chance that Moj might be able to use this as an opportunity to expand.
Commenting on the new funding, Ankush Sachdeva, CEO & Cofounder, ShareChat said, “ShareChat is on a rapid growth path and is spearheading the growth of the Indic language Indian social media landscape. Our short-video platform Moj has been on an explosive growth trajectory since its launch. This funding will help us further invest into our product development, ML capabilities and helping the creator community”
“ShareChat and Moj together form one of the largest content ecosystems in the country, offering a great experience to the users and enabling brands to engage with the audience deeply. We extend our gratitude to every investor, partner and team-member who has been a part of our growth story” added Sachdeva.
