ShareChat raises $40 mn from investors including, Pawan Munjal, Twitter
ShareChat, India’s regional social network, has completed its pre-Series E funding round of $40 million. The investment has come from billionaire Pawan Munjal, chairman of Hero MotoCorp Ltd, the country’s largest two-wheeler maker, and DCM Shriram Promoters Family Office and social media giant Twitter. The other investors include SAIF Partners, Lightspeed Ventures and India Quotient. With the new round, Bengaluru-based ShareChat’s total funding now stands at $264 million.
The funds raised in this round will be used for driving the growth of 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.
“ShareChat is on a rapid growth path and is spearheading the growth of the Indic language Indian social media landscape,” said Ankush Sachdeva, CEO and co-founder, ShareChat. “Our short-video platform Moj has been on an explosive growth trajectory since its launch. This funding will help us further invest in our product development, ML (machine learning) capabilities and helping the creator community,” he said.
ShareChat and Moj together have over 240 million MAUs (monthly active users) presently. ShareChat itself has exceeded over 160 million MAUs in the past month with the average daily time spent by users on the platform at 31 minutes. Moj has garnered over 80 million MAUs with users spending on an average about 34 minutes on the platform.
“The economic and demographic ecosystem of the internet universe is primed for companies like ShareChat and their products,” said Dr Pawan Munjal, who is investing in his capacity in the company, through his Family Trust. “I have immense faith in the young entrepreneurs of our country and truly believe in their aim to achieve a significant global customer base,” he said.
ShareChat has also received investment from Ajay Shridhar Shriram, chairman of DCM Shriram. He has invested in DCM Shriram Promoters Family Office.
“ShareChat’s growth story has not been limited to its success, but also motivated many young Indian entrepreneurs to dream big in the internet ecosystem,” said Ajay Shridhar Shriram. “The passion and success exhibited by the company and its growth trajectory have encouraged the development of a whole new social media product ecosystem in India,” he said.
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.
