Rapidly growing regional language social media platform ShareChat has completed a new round of funding, raising USD 100 million from both existing and new investors. The company also said that global social media giant Twitter was one of the new investors who participated in the round, along with TrustBridge partners.
According to a statement, existing investors who participated in this round include Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Capital, India Quotient and Morningside Venture Capital. This series-D round will help ShareChat strengthen the platform’s technology infrastructure to meet expansion requirements, and acquire talent. The firm is planning to introduce more features to make the experience seamless across devices.
“With this new round of funding, we are positioned to take the next leap in our growth story. As we scale up, our focus remains to help the ShareChat community better express themselves in the comfort of their native language,” informed Ankush Sachdeva, CEO, ShareChat.
According to industry analysts, Twitter investment into the platform is significant, since it expands the company’s reach into the regional language segment, and gain expertise in the space. “Twitter and ShareChat are aligned on the broader purpose of serving the public conversation, helping the world learn faster and solve common challenges. This investment will help ShareChat grow and provide the company’s management team access to Twitter’s executives as thought partners,” said Manish Maheshwari, managing director, Twitter India.
ShareChat’s existing partners also expressed confidence in the company’s prospects, with Ravi Mhatre, founder and managing director, Lightspeed Venture Partners, stating that “the company has a special opportunity to consolidate its position as the defining media platform to engage India’s diverse, multicultural and multilingual population”. Lightspeed has participated in every fundraising round of ShareChat, beginning from its series-A round funding.
Other investors like Tuck Lye Koh, founding partner and CEO, Shunwei Capital, said that “the diversity and depth of user generated content has enhanced the stickiness of the product, and will contribute great business value to ShareChat as a platform”, while Yu Cheng, partner, Morningside Venture Capital said that the company has been constantly striving to accumulate consumer insights. “With more strategic and financial investors joining at this round, we are very confident about the company’s compelling growth in the coming year,” Cheng said.