● Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global led the round, along with participation from Snap Inc, Twitter and India Quotient, and others
● The new round will be utilized for doubling down on tech initiatives, supporting user growth, and improving platform safety features
Mohalla Tech, the parent company behind India’s leading short video app Moj and Indic language social media platform ShareChat has become the latest entrant to the Unicorn Club. The company has raised US$502 million in its latest round. With the new rounds of investment, the valuation stands a little over US$2.1 billion. The investment has been led by Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global, along with participation from Snap Inc, Twitter, and India Quotient amongst others.
Commenting on the financing round, Ankush Sachdeva, CEO & Co-founder, ShareChat said “We are at an exciting inflection point in our journey, where we are going after a massive opportunity with the right team in place and the backing of long-term investors who have a deep conviction in our mission. With ShareChat & Moj, we are well-positioned to build the largest AI-powered content ecosystem in India.”
Talking about the growth and the investment plan, he further added, “With this infusion of capital we would continue to aggressively grow our user base, build a world-class org in India & US and further strengthen our creator community, AI-powered recommendation engine, and platform health.”
Scott Shleifer, Partner at Tiger Global said, “As Internet penetration increases, ShareChat’s leading content creation platform is poised to expand dramatically by bridging into online purchases of goods and services. Additionally, Moj is well-positioned to seize the opportunity presented by the growth of short videos in India. We are impressed with the team’s understanding of these rapidly evolving technologies and its ability to execute quickly, and we are excited to partner with them as they continue to build a great company.”
Ravi Mhatre, Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners said, “We are excited to witness the market-leading growth of Sharechat’s short video product Moj over the past year, with adoption in metro cities, towns, and villages across the length and breadth of India. Lightspeed globally is honored to double down on its partnership with Sharechat to build one of India’s iconic consumer Internet companies.”
Dev Khare, the Partner, Lightspeed India, said, “ShareChat’s rise to market leadership in India’s social media category has been an accelerating journey involving category creation, world-class team building, and product-led growth. At Lightspeed, we are excited to have backed Ankush, Bhanu, and Farid in every round from the Series A in 2016 onwards.”
Founded in 2015, Mohalla Tech has now successfully raised over US$766 million across 6 fundraising rounds, enabling ShareChat to substantially grow and differentiate itself by delivering a unique, tech-led social media experience. Furthermore, Moj, which launched in July 2020, has already made huge strides towards leadership in the short video space. Moj and ShareChat together, with a 280 million-strong user community, envision building a cohesive AI-powered content ecosystem to address India’s growing digital needs.
