ShareChat's valuation crosses $5 bn after closing $520 mn funding round

Social media company raises $255 mn from Google, Times Group and existing investors

ShareChat has closed a multi-tranche funding round to raise a total of $520 million at a valuation of $5 billion, said the social media company on Thursday.

In the final tranche, ShareChat had Google and Times Group as new investors. Temasek participated again, adding $255 million. In the first part of the round in December 2021, ShareChat raised $266 million from Alkeon Capital, Temasek, HarbourVest, Moore Strategic Ventures and India Quotient.

ShareChat, which was valued at $1 billion last year to give it unicorn status, collectively raised $913 million in 2021. It was the highest funding among all companies that became unicorns that year.

“The coming year will be about capitalizing on the scale and building robust revenue models,” said Ankush Sachdeva, CEO and co-founder of ShareChat and Moj, in a statement.

ShareChat (Mohalla Tech) also runs India’s largest short-video platforms, Moj and TakaTak. The three together cater to over 400 million users. The company said it has built diversified monetization avenues beyond advertising in areas like virtual gifting and video commerce. For instance, virtual gifting is witnessing strong adoption on the ShareChat app, with the business line already at a $50 million ARR (annual recurring revenue), which the company said is set to more than double by year-end.

The company said its voice-based live hangouts stream 2 billion minutes of audio every month. Moj has become a social commerce platform, through its exclusive partnership with Flipkart.