Social networking app ShareChat raises Series A funding

ShareChat, a regional language social networking app operated by Mohalla Tech Pvt. Ltd, has raised $4 million (Rs 27.5 crore) in a Series A round of funding led by Lightspeed India Partners.

The round also saw participation from existing investors SAIF Partners and India Quotient, as well as from Delhi-based early-stage venture capital firm Venture Highway, ShareChat said in a statement.

ShareChat was founded in 2015 by IIT Kanpur alumni Farid Ahsan, Ankush Sachdeva and Bhanu Singh. It allows users to create, discover and share content such as videos, jokes, audio songs and images.

The app is available in six languages—Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati and Punjabi. Tamil and Bengali are currently in private beta and will be shortly made available for all users.

Ahsan said the startup will use the funds to expand its regional language coverage. "Having multi-lingual interfaces is just not enough. We have literally just touched the surface of our target audience," he said.

The startup claims that the app has been downloaded 3.5 million times, with roughly 2 million active users on the platform. It says 1 million content pieces are shared a day on ShareChat.

The startup had previously raised $1.35 million in October last year from SAIF Partners and India Quotient. ShareChat was also one among several startups that were selected by Google for its accelerator programme this year. As part of the selection, the firm received $50,000 in equity-free seed funding.

Lightspeed has made several investments this year. On Wednesday, Lightspeed invested in B2B marketplace Udaan. Earlier this year, it invested in companies including ed-tech startup Byju's, cloud-based big data firm Qubole, hotel aggregator Oyo Rooms, matrimony app maker GetVee and food-tech startup FreshMenu.

India Quotient typically comes in as a seed or pre-Series A stage investor in tech startups. The fund's most recent investments include job portal iimjobs.com, online lender focused on the two-wheeler market CreditMate, wealth management app WealthTrust, online retailer FabAlley, SME financing platform Lendingkart and home entertainment firm Creo.

India Quotient's portfolio also includes career consultancy firm Mapmytalent.in, pet products provider DogSpot.in, online rental property service provider Grabhouse, home healthcare startup Care24 and food-tech venture HolaChef.