Vernacular social media & short video platform ShareChat announced on Thursday that it has raised $266 Mn in a fresh funding round led by Alkeon Capital. Existing investors including Temasek Holdings and Moore Strategic Ventures.
The Bengaluru based company said that it has been valued $3.7 Bn in the new funding round. This is almost 20% spike in valuation since its last funding round in August this year when it was valued around $2.88 Bn. With the latest funding round, the Ankush Sachdeva led firm has raked in almost $910 Mn in 2021.
Apart from raising slew of equity funding this year, ShareChat also earned the unique distinction of raising one of the largest debt funding round this year. The company had raised $266 Mn debt from Tencent as part of the series E round. Tencent decided to back the Twitter and Lightspeed backed startup despite growing scrutiny of Chinese ecosystem in Indian startup industry.
Notably, it was series E round that eventually propelled ShareChat to the coveted unicorn club. The company had raised total $502 Mn in the series E round.
Amid its funding frenzy, the video sharing platform increased its ESOP pool in April. The company added Rs 280 crore worth shares by expanding its ESOP pool size to Rs 513 Cr.
ShareChat was one of the few short video startups that took the maximum advantage of the void that was created in the aftermath of TikTok’s exit last year.
To capitalize TikTok’s exit, the company launched its own video sharing app called Moj. Since the launch, the Moj app has steadily climbed the popularity chart and today stands as one of the most downloaded video sharing apps in the country. The company is yet to file its FY21 financial statement. It had earned an operating revenue for the first time in the last fiscal year.