The growth of the internet from the early 2000s has been significant in India. This has further led to the growth of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This might be surprising, but the number of internet users is higher in rural India(399 million users) than in urban India(360 million). Most social media platforms operate only in the English language. Due to this, a huge number of non-English-speaking internet users in India were not able to utilize it completely. Thus, there was a need for a platform that would operate in the regional languages of India.
Understanding this problem, IIT Kanpur alumna Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Farid Ahsan founded ShareChat in 2015. The vision of this startup was to provide internet users with a platform that embraces India’s linguistic diversity.
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ShareChat’s Valuation drops by 60% to $2B from its peak valuation of $5B in 2022. The news came with a $48.9M funding in venture debt, the announcement was made on 27 March 2024.
First Traction
The B2C-modeled social networking service platform raised its first funding in February 2015.
The Bengaluru-headquartered firm posted its first financial report in FY20, ShareChat generated ₹9.4Cr from operational revenue that year.
Year-over-Year Analysis
In 2020, ShareChat’s overall revenue was ₹38.12Cr and the growth rate was 49%. It incurred a net loss of ₹676.85Cr. The company has raised $100M by 2020 with the latest funding that year led by X (formerly known as Twitter).
For the next fiscal year, the company gained unicorn status with a valuation of $2.1B. The growth rate increased by 47.61% with the total revenue generated being ₹80Cr. The firm managed to secure 2 funds this year totaling its overall funds to $200M. The net loss was ₹1446.4Cr.
As of FY22, the valuation breached the $3B mark. The Bengaluru-based startup experienced a whopping increase in growth rate by 325%. The total revenue went up by ₹347Cr in FY23 from ₹80Cr in FY22. The firm was able to secure a noteworthy Series E funding of $502M led by LightSpeed Ventures and Tiger Global Management. The total funding till 2022 was $1.13B. A net loss of ₹2988.6Cr was observed in this financial year.
In FY23, the company’s valuation grew to $5B as of June 2023. The overall revenue was ₹540Cr and the growth rate was 62%. B2C-modelled, ShareChat till FY23 had secured $1.51B as funds. The net loss incurred by the firm in this fiscal year was ₹3241Cr.
For FY24, the company is expected to generate a total revenue of ₹750Cr with a growth rate of 72%.On 27 March 2024, the firm raised $48.9M fund in debt financing which has resulted in declining the firm’s valuation to $2B.
Expansion
The Bengaluru-headquartered social media platform is spreading its team globally across India, USA, and Europe. The company hit its first target by making ShareChat profitable in October 2023. The B2C-modeled firm now expects its online video-making app Moj to be profitable by this June. The startup also aims for its first public listing after making the whole model profitable.
Competitors
The firm has competition from some serious big names in the markets like Instagram, VeRse, Firework, Helo, and ByteDance. Still, the Twitter-backed start-up ShareChat is ranked 2nd among its other competitors
Acquisitions
ShareChat has made 6 acquisitions in sectors such as Consumer Digital-India and Vernacular Platforms. Noticeable acquisitions include Clipapp, Hera Pheri Films, and Circle Internet. The firm also acquired MX Takatak in March 2022.
