India’s ShareChat valued at $2 billion in fresh $500 million fundraiser

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Indian content-sharing platform ShareChat on Thursday said it has raised $502 million in a fresh funding round that values the company at more than $2 billion. Tiger Global, Snap Inc and Twitter have contributed to the latest fundraiser.</p>
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The funding was led by U.S. venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners and American investment firm Tiger, ShareChat said in a statement. Tiger Global and Snap, owner of popular photo-messaging app Snapchat, are new investors in the Indian platform.</p>
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ShareChat’s valuation makes it India’s latest “unicorn”, which describes tech startups valued at more than $1 billion. Including the latest funding, ShareChat has now raised $766 million over six funding rounds.</p>
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The funding signals growing investor interest in Indian social media apps that are seeing an opportunity to expand after the government banned dozens of Chinese apps, such as ByteDance’s TikTok, following an India-China clash at Galwan on the Ladakh border last year.</p>
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Social media apps such as Moj are gaining in popularity as alternatives to video app TikTok with the rapidly growing use of smartphones in the country.</p>
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ShareChat is now valued at little more than $2.1 billion, it said, adding that new funds will be used to take up technology initiatives and support user growth.</p>
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“With this infusion of capital we would continue to aggressively grow our user base,” ShareChat CEO Ankush Sachdeva said.</p>
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The ShareChat app has 160 million users in India and Moj has 120 million. ShareChat has plans to raise more funds from investors in the coming months, a source familiar with its plans said.</p>