Mumbai: ShareChat, India’s leading social media venture, today announced the completion of its Pre-Series E round of US$40 million. This current round of funding will be utilised towards driving growth for Moj, the newly launched short video platform from the Sharechat stable.
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.
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.
ShareChat and Moj together have over 240 million MAUs presently. ShareChat itself has exceeded over 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.
Alongside existing investors the round also saw two prominent Indian business stalwarts joining ShareChat’s existing investors to support ShareChat’s ambitious growth plans
The first new investor is Dr Pawan Munjal, investing in his personal capacity, through his Family Trust. Dr Munjal – the CEO & Chairman of Hero MotoCorp, the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer – is among India’s foremost corporate leaders championing growth and socio-economic progress. He has been prolific in supporting many Indian start-ups recently.
On the investment into ShareChat, Dr Pawan Munjal said, “India’s IT industry has made an indelible impact on the global economy in the recent decades and now India’s new age start-ups are building on the existing resources to reach the next growth stage. The economic and demographic ecosystem of the internet universe is primed for companies like ShareChat and their products. I have immense faith in the young entrepreneurs of our country and truly believe in their aim to achieve a significant global customer base. I wish the team at ShareChat the very best for ‘moj’ and look forward to witnessing their exciting journey from close quarters. ShareChat is an excellent example of a Self-Reliant company that is aiming to take India to the world.”
ShareChat has also seen investment from another stalwart. Mr. Ajay Shridhar Shriram, Chairman, DCM Shriram, has invested through DCM Shriram Promoters Family Office.
Commenting on this, Ajay Shridhar Shriram said, “ShareChat’s growth story has not been limited to its own success, but also motivated many young Indian entrepreneurs to dream big in the internet ecosystem. The passion and success exhibited by the company and its growth trajectory has encouraged the development of a whole new social media product ecosystem in India. We are equally passionate to contribute to this journey, helping them emerge as leaders in India and also, strong contenders on the global landscape.”
Twitter previously led ShareChat’s Series D funding round with additional backing by SAIF Partners, Lightspeed Ventures and India Quotient, the three of which have been involved with ShareChat as investors since its early days.
Mayank Khanduja, Partner, SAIF Partners said,”We had immense trust when ShareChat dared to dream big in the complex Indian social media space. We are thrilled we took the right call at a time when there were not many examples of Indian social media platforms. Today, we are excited for the path ahead for both Moj and Sharechat as we foresee Moj becoming a global platform. We are delighted to reaffirm our support to the company in this financing round”
SAIF Partners India VI Limited has invested in this fund.
Dev Khare, Partner, Lightspeed India, said, “We are excited to deepen our partnership with ShareChat, continuing our support in every financing round since leading their Series A. The company’s India-first brand and capabilities in local languages, product innovation, AI, growth and retention are deep moats. The hyper-growth in 2020 for its two applications – Sharechat and Moj – underscores its emergence as a quintessential Indian success story.”
Madhukar Sinha, Partner, India Quotient, said, “India could never have dreamt of having a homegrown social media platform, had ShareChat not embarked on the impossible in 2015. ShareChat’s success has given immense hope to India’s startup fraternity, and motivated entrepreneurs to take audacious bets in India’s internet ecosystem. Our association with ShareChat as an investor goes back to their inception days, when we believed in the founders could build an ‘Indian Social Media Company’. To our amazement, the first version of Sharechat app was created in just a few days of beanbags and redbull in our office. And five years later they have done the same with Moj. As a new era unfolds with Moj, we are yet again solidly behind this team to support them. We believe Moj is designed for bigger success and will succeed across India, and beyond India in the years to come.”
With the new round, ShareChat’s total funding now stands at US $264 million.
