Mohalla Tech, the company that owns short-video app Moj and Indic language social media platform ShareChat, is the latest to join the unicorn club with a latest fundraise of $502 million, valuing the company a little over $2.1 billion.
The investment was led by Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global, along with participation from Snap Inc, Twitter and India Quotient amongst others, the firm said in a statement.
“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,” said Ankush Sachdeva, CEO and Co-founder, ShareChat.
ShareChat will use the latest fund to expand in India and the US and strengthen its artificial-intelligence powered recommendation engine, platform health and creator community.
Mohalla Tech, which was founded in 2015, has 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.
Moj, which launched in July 2020, is already a name to reckon with in the short video app space, helped in part by the exit of TikTok from India.
“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,” said Scott Shleifer, Partner at Tiger Global.
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.
Source: Business-Standard