It is not very common to hear about Indian startups raising funds through ICO or initial coin offering. But video sharing app Chingari e has done this uncommon thing after raising $19 Mn via token funding round, i.e. ICO.
Dozens of crypto firms and crypto investment firms participated in this ICO funding round. Republic crypto, Galaxy digital, Alameda research, Solana capital are some of the major crypto firm that have participated in this round.
This is the second fundraise for Chingari, which had raised $13 Mn in Pre-series A round earlier this year. The Pre-series A round onboarded Bollywood superstar Salman Khan as one of the investors in the company. According to the sources, the video sharing major is all set to raise Series B round pretty soon, which will be a much bigger round.
The Bengaluru based startup will use the funds accumulated through ICO funding round to launch its own crypto product called GARI. GARI will apparently play a critical role in helping Chingari’s creators to increase their monetization, though the company hasn’t much light on this matter.
Chingari will be potentially becoming the first Indian video sharing app to foray into crypto tokens. Only recently, the app had started offering social commerce services and will soon start offering games within its app. Chingari is among the several home grown apps that are trying the fill the huge void created in the aftermath of TikTok ban. It competes with Max Taka Tak, Josh, Sharechat and Rospo