ShareChat, an India-based developer of online content sharing platforms, has added $145m to a funding round featuring corporates Tencent and Snap, increasing it to $647m, it told Reuters today.
The latest cash was provided by Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, a joint venture between internet group Naver and financial services provider Mirae Asset, as well as Temasek and Moore Strategic Ventures, valuing the company at $2.88bn.
Internet group Tencent provided $225m of the $502m first close in April this year, investing with messaging platform developer Snap, Tiger Global Management, Lightspeed Venture Partners and, according to Reuters, microblogging platform developer Twitter, at a $2.1bn valuation.
ShareChat owns an eponymous social network with 180 million monthly active users as well as a short-form video app called Moj which has some 160 million monthly active users, benefitting from the Indian government’s move to ban China-owned rival TikTok.
The first tranche of the round had been reported as series E funding but was described co-founder and CEO by Ankush Sachdeva to TechCrunch as a series F.
Sachdeva said: “This additional investment for series F is a validation of our market leadership and a reflection of investor trust in our execution capabilities. We are immensely proud of what we have been able to achieve with Moj and ShareChat in the last 12 months.”
Consumer electronics manufacturer Xiaomi led the company’s $18.2m series B round in 2018, investing alongside Lightspeed Venture Partners, Shunwei Capital and existing backers SAIF Partners, India Quotient and Venture Highway at a $67m valuation to take its total funding to almost $24m.
ShareChat added $99.2m in a series C round led by Shunwei Capital later the same year that also featured Xiaomi, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Partners, Venture Highway and 5Y Capital.
Twitter led a $100m series D round for ShareChat in 2019 that included Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Capital, India Quotient, 5Y Capital and TrustBridge Partners, valuing it at $650m.
The company raised a further $40m from Twitter, India Quotient, Lightspeed Ventures, SAIF Partners, Pawan Munjal and Ajay Shridhar Shriram in the form of a September 2020 transaction described as a pre-series E round.
