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ShareChat is backed by Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Enterprise Companions, SAIF Capital, India Quotient and Morningside Enterprise Capital
Circle Web which gives regionally related data in Indian languages is at the moment current in 120 districts throughout Rajasthan, UP and Kerala
Not too long ago, ShareChat’s Moj has seen an enormous spike in progress as customers gravitated to homegrown alternate options
Indian social media platform ShareChat, on Monday (August 24), introduced that it has acquired hyperlocal data platform Circle Web.
Launched in 2018 by three IIT-ians Uchit Kumar, Gaurav Agrawal, and Shashank Shekhar and backed by SAIF Companions and Enterprise Freeway, Circle gives regionally related data to Indian language web customers. It’s current for customers in 120 districts throughout Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala, and gives data in Hindi and Malayalam.
Circle has a community of greater than 1,000 volunteers, working for the hyperlocal content material ecosystem. The platform will proceed functioning independently, with its 15-member staff becoming a member of ShareChat and constructing a “language-first, community-driven, user-generated hyperlocal content ecosystem.”
“ShareChat is growing faster than the industry, and we are investing in our capabilities to serve diverse content needs of the new users that we add to the platform. The acquisition will help us penetrate deeper into geographies and nurture a thriving hyperlocal content ecosystem that will understand and serve the latent content needs of, the next billion internet users more effectively,” mentioned Manohar Charan, vice chairman, company growth and strategic finance at ShareChat.
“Circle’s hyperlocal expansion playbook complements ShareChat’s wide user base to create a strategic advantage and enhance our operational muscles to boost a community-powered content ecosystem,” Charan added.
ShareChat To Be India’s Newest Unicorn?
ShareChat, which has 130 Mn month-to-month energetic customers (MAUs), was earlier this month reported to being in talks with US tech large Microsoft, for a fundraise price $100 Mn. Reportedly, Microsoft would simply be one of many traders in ShareChat, and the $100 mn funding would solely be one-third of what the social media startup is trying to elevate in its newest spherical. ShareChat’s current traders are anticipated to hitch Microsoft within the spherical, which may see ShareChat changing into the newest startup in India’s unicorn membership.
The corporate’s final funding spherical was in August final 12 months, when it raised $100 Mn in a Sequence D spherical led by Twitter, with current traders Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Enterprise Companions, SAIF Capital, India Quotient and Morningside Enterprise Capital additionally investing additional. That funding had pegged the corporate’s valuation at $650 Mn.
Until date, the corporate has raised $222.eight Mn in eight funding rounds, in response to knowledge obtainable on Crunchbase. ShareChat was a part of Inc42’s UpNext collection on soonicorn startups in 2019 and was anticipated to succeed in a $1 Bn valuation by 2021.
“Circle was started with a vision to provide trustworthy locally relevant information to Indian language internet users. The platform evolved as an invisible thread to bridge the gaps in content being made available to non-English speaking internet users, through relevant and contextual hyperlocal content. With the help of ShareChat’s wide reach, expertise in language-first approach, powerful content serving algorithms, we will soon be reaching out to the majority of the districts across India,” mentioned Shashank Shekhar, CEO and cofounder of Circle Web.
Shashank Shekhar was heading content material operations at ShareChat earlier than he began Circle. He’ll now be heading the general content material technique for ShareChat.
ShareChat Sees Progress In Wake Of TikTok Ban
ShareChat launched its brief video app Moj on June 29, the identical day because the ban on TikTok and 58 different Chinese language apps by the centre. Moj has seen an enormous spike in progress as customers gravitated to homegrown alternate options. Since its launch on June 29, the app has garnered 22 Mn downloads, in response to knowledge on app analytics portal Sensor Tower. Whereas each ShareChat and Moj are positioned as ‘Made in India’ on the Google Play Retailer, ShareChat’s traders in earlier rounds embody Shunwei Capital, a Chinese language enterprise capital fund run by Xiaomi cofounder Lei Jun, in addition to Chinese language electronics large Xiaomi.
The ShareChat app has additionally seen progress in India up to now month. Days after the ban on TikTok, ShareChat claimed to have seen a progress price of 5 lakh new customers per hour, with Indian customers scurrying to TikTok alternate options within the brief video sharing house. Accessible in 14 regional languages, ShareChat’s core base is in Tier 2 and Tier three cities. The app at the moment has greater than 100 Mn downloads on the Google Play Retailer.
Based by IIT-Kanpur alumni, Farid Ahsan, Bhanu Singh and Ankush Sachdeva, in 2015, ShareChat is a regional language-focussed social media platform, which banks closely on user-generated content material. It boasts options like nameless chat, direct messaging, unique video content material underneath the banner of ShareChat Talkies. It was additionally part of the 2018 version of probably the most coveted listing of India’s most revolutionary startups — 42Subsequent by Inc42.
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