ShareChat, a social networking platform that celebrates India’s linguistic diversity, has scooped up 116.31 crore ($18.2 million) in a series B round led by Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi. This is according to Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) filings filed by the Mohalla Tech Pvt. Ltd (Sharechat’s parent company).
The MCA filing claims that Xiaomi has invested Rs 36.84 crore ($5.76 million) while Shunwei Capital (the VC fund created by Xiaomi’s founder Lei Jun) has put in approximately 18.01 crore ($2.82 million). The rest of the contribution has come from other high profile investors including SAIF Partners, Lightspeed Partners, India Quotient and Venture Highway.
All these investors have been allotted preference and equity shares by Mohalla Tech. As per MCA filing and report published in VCC circle, the Bengaluru based company has given away 7,477 preferential shares and 20 equity shares at an approximate price of Rs 1,55,147 per share.
However, ShareChat, as well as Xiaomi, has yet to officially confirm the funding report. There has been so far no confirmation from other investors either.
ShareChat was incorporated in 2015 by three co-founders with an aim to give a social platform to millions of vernacular language speaking people living across India. Although Facebook for long has been doing lot of things to adapt to India’s multilingualism, it has not yet succeeded in filling the huge vacuum created by lack of English speaking people. Hence a need for vernacular social network like ShareChat makes lot of sense.
However, ShareChat cannot be considered as a direct competitor to Facebook in anyway, since it is an app only service. ShareChat is currently available for download for all Android users. The company makes a tall claim that more than one crore users have downloaded its app till date and is helping millions of non-English speaking Indians to connect with each other.