Content-sharing platform ShareChat mentioned it has raised $502 million in recent funding from Tiger Global, Snap Inc and a few present traders akin to Twitter Inc, valuing it at greater than $2 billion.
The funding was led by US enterprise capital agency Lightspeed Venture Partners and American funding agency Tiger, ShareChat mentioned in an announcement on Thursday.
Tiger Global and Snap, proprietor of widespread photo-messaging app Snapchat, are new traders within the Indian platform.
The funding alerts rising investor curiosity in Indian social media apps that wish to faucet into pent-up demand after New Delhi banned dozens of Chinese apps, together with ByteDance’s TikTok, following an India-China border conflict final yr.
Moj and different comparable options of the favored video app TikTok have been discovering favour with customers in India, the place smartphone use has been quickly surging.
ShareChat is now valued at little greater than $2.1 billion, it mentioned, including that new funds will likely be used to double down on expertise initiatives and assist person progress.
“With this infusion of capital we would continue to aggressively grow our user base,” ShareChat CEO Ankush Sachdeva mentioned.
The ShareChat app has 160 million customers in India and Moj has 120 million. Moj and different comparable TikTok options have been discovering favour with customers in India, the place smartphone use has been quickly surging.
ShareChat has plans to lift extra funds from traders within the coming months, a supply accustomed to its plans mentioned.
The firm declined to touch upon future funding plans.
ShareChat’s valuation makes it India’s newest “unicorn”, which describes tech startups valued at greater than $1 billion.
Including the most recent funding, ShareChat has now raised $766 million over six funding rounds.
