India-based social networking platform ShareChat has received $100m in series D capital from a consortium led by social media firm Twitter, TechCrunch reported yesterday.
TrustBridge Partners, Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Capital, India Quotient and Morningside Venture Capital also contributed to the series D round, which valued ShareChat at $650m.
Founded in 2015 and owned by holding company Mohalla Tech, ShareChat operates a social networking app that is available in 15 regional languages including Hindi and Tamil. The service has attracted approximately 60 million users to date.
Initial reports two months ago suggested Twitter would provide $50m, though this figure was not verified by TechCrunch. Consumer electronics manufacturer and existing ShareChat investor Xiaomi had been expected to return for the round but does not appear to have done so.
The financing will aid business growth as ShareChat vies to double its user base within the next year while bolstering its infrastructure and hiring more staff. The company’s management will gain access to Twitter’s executives to receive insights.
ShareChat has now raised nearly $223m in funding altogether. Shunwei led its $99.2m series C round in September 2018, with commitments from Xiaomi, Morningside, Lightspeed, SAIF Partners, Venture Highway and an unnamed Cayman Islands-based fund.
Xiaomi had previously led an $18.2m series B round for the company in January 2018 that also featured Shunwei, SAIF Partners, India Quotient, Lightspeed and Venture Highway.
