ShareChat, the content-sharing and social media service has just raised $145 million in a fresh Series F funding round led by Singapore-based investment giant Temasek Holdings, and two other participants. The firm now stands at a valuation of $2.88 billion, making it one of the fastest growing firms in India, and a giant in the country’s social media market.
This new investment seems to be the latest in a growing interest that investment agencies are showing towards short-video platforms, a large number of which have been cropping up ever since TikTok was banned in India.
ShareChat, is one such service, allowing users to post content in as many as 15 Indian languages. The company is also the name behind Moj, a short-video sharing application that was launched last year, and has become quite popular in the country. Moj is now the fastest growing segment under ShareChat, and is expected to outgrow the main platform one day.
It was reported earlier this month by TechCrunch that the six-year old Bengaluru-based startup was eyeing a valuation of $2.8 billion, which it has now reached, thanks to the total $911 million in funds that it has raised to date.
The latest funding round saw participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, as well as from a fund set up jointly by South Korea’s Nevertheless Corp., and Mirae Asset, apart from Temasek. Less than four months ago, ShareChat had also raised a sum of $502 million in another funding round which was led by Tiger Global, Snap Inc., and Twitter, among other notable names. Back then, the firm’s valuation had stood at $2.1 billion.
The newly-raised funds will be used towards strengthening the artificial intelligence at Moj, while also improving the editing tools present in the app, according to CEO Ankush Sachdeva. He further added, “This additional investment for Series F is a validation of our market leadership and a reflection of investor trust in our execution capabilities. We are immensely proud of what we have been able to achieve with Moj and ShareChat in the last 12 months. We have been very fortunate to attract a bunch of very high quality names in our series F and the list just got longer with Temasek, MSV and Mirae-Naver joining hands with us.”
ShareChat is massively popular in India, especially in the smaller cities and towns, and the startup claims that it has over 160 million users. Moj, however, is seeing stiff competition from the likes of many other short-video apps, like DailyHunt’s Josh, MX’s TakaTak, and Glance’s Roposo.
Still, it continues to be a market leader. In Sachdeva’s words, “With a monthly active user base of 160 million and 50+ million strong creator community, Moj in a year has grown into India’s number one short video app. To strengthen our leadership position, we will continue to invest in our AI capabilities, scaling our global AI org, building advanced editing tools and helping our creators monetize on the platform.”
