SAIF Partners leads funding in social networking platform ShareChat

ShareChat, a regional language social networking platform, has secured about $1.35 million (Rs 9 crore) in investment from SAIF Partners and existing investor India Quotient.

Bangalore-based ShareChat, run by Mohalla Tech Pvt. Ltd, allows users to share videos, jokes, audio songs and images in Hindi, Telugu, Marathi and Malayalam.

The deal was closed in October last year, as per VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle. SAIF Partners led the round.

The news was first reported by The Economic Times citing a company statement. ShareChat had earlier received $100,000 in investment from India Quotient in February 2015, according to the report.

Queries sent to the company did not receive a response at the time of filing this report.

ShareChat was founded by IIT Kanpur alumni Farid Ahsan, Ankush Sachdeva and Bhanu Singh in January 2015.

In a similar space, Kanpur-based Trident Analytical Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which operates Hindi social networking platform ShabdaNagari.in, has raised an undisclosed amount in bridge funding from ah! Ventures. In February this year, Bangalore- and San Francisco-based social networking startup Affinity raised $1.2 million in angel funding from Silicon Valley investors.

Venture and growth equity investor SAIF Partners has in recent months invested in online counselling startup YourDOST, fintech startup ClearTax and logistics management company FarEye, among others.

India Quotient typically comes in as a seed or pre-Series A stage investor in tech startups. Its portfolio 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.

Like this report? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get our top reports.