[Funding alert] ShareChat joins the unicorn club with $502M funding from Lightspeed Ventures, Tiger Global

ShareChat — the Indian language social media platform's parent company Mohalla Tech, which also houses short video app Moj — on Thursday said it raised $502 million in its latest round led by Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global, along with participation from Snap Inc, Twitter, and India Quotient, among others.

With this round, the Indic language social media startup has now become a unicorn, valued at $2.1 billion.

Commenting on the financing round, Ankush Sachdeva, CEO and 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 and Moj, we are well-positioned to build the largest AI-powered content ecosystem in India.”

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ShareChat will use the fresh funds to grow its user base and build a world-class organisation. It is also looking to strengthen its creator community, AI-powered recommendation engine, and platform health.

Speaking on the investment, Scott Shleifer, Partner at Tiger Global, said, 

“As the 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 video 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.”

Founded in 2015, Mohalla Tech has raised over $766 million across six fundraising rounds. It launched short video platform Moj in July 2020, shortly after ByteDance's TikTok app was banned in India.

Ravi Mhatre, Partner at 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."

Together, Moj and ShareChat, with a 280 million user community, envision building a cohesive AI-powered content ecosystem to address India’s growing digital needs.

Dev Khare, Partner at 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."