KOLKATA: Mohalla Tech, the parent company of Moj and ShareChat, has become the latest entrant to the coveted unicorn club. The start-up has raised $502 million in its latest round of funding led by Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global, along with participation from Snap Inc, Twitter and India Quotient. With the new rounds of investment, its valuation has passed over $2.1 billion.
ShareChat CEO & co-founder Ankush Sachdeva 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 & Moj, we are well-positioned to build the largest AI-powered content ecosystem in India.”
With this infusion of capital, the company is looking at aggressively growing its user base, strengthen our creator community, AI-powered recommendation engine and platform health, added Sachdeva.
Tiger Global partner Scott Shleifer said, “As 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.”
Lightspeed Venture Partners partner Ravi Mhatre 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. Lightspeed globally is honoured to double down on its partnership with Sharechat to build one of India's iconic consumer Internet companies."
Lightspeed has backed the start-up in every Series A investment round since 2016.
Founded in 2015, Mohalla Tech has now successfully raised over $766 million across six fundraising rounds, enabling ShareChat to substantially grow and differentiate itself by delivering a unique, tech-led social media experience. Furthermore, Moj, which launched in July 2020, has already made huge strides towards leadership in the short video space. Moj and ShareChat together, with a 280 million-strong user community, envision building a cohesive AI-powered content ecosystem to address India’s growing digital needs.
