Twitter, TrustBridge join ShareChat’s $100 million funding round

Regional social media platform ShareChat announced raising $100 million as part of its Series D round with participation from new investors Twitter and TrustBridge Partners. This is the first strategic investment by the US-headquartered social media platform in India.

Existing investors in ShareChat including Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Partners, India Quotient and Morningside Venture Capital also participated in the funding round, according to an official statement issued by ShareChat.

With this round, capital raised by ShareChat stands at $224 million.

The Bengaluru-headquartered company will use the capital to strengthen technology infrastructure, scale business, accelerate hiring, add new features and create experience across devices, the statement added.

“This is a very exciting time for us at ShareChat as we see our platform growing rapidly. With this new round of funding, we are positioned to take the next leap in our growth story. As we scale up, our focus remains to help the ShareChat community better express themselves in the comfort of their native language,” said Ankush Sachdeva, CEO , ShareChat in the statement. 

ShareChat was founded in 2015 by Sachdeva, Farid Ahsan and Bhanu Pratap Singh to create a social platform that allows exchange of jokes, videos, songs and images. 

The Android app is available in 14 Indian languages and has reported over 100 million installs from the Google Play Store. 

The company  last raised capital in September 2018 with Shunwei Capital leading the $100 million round, valuing the company at $458.49 million. 

“Twitter and ShareChat are aligned on the broader purpose of serving the public conversation, helping the world learn faster and solve common challenges. This investment will help ShareChat grow and provide the company’s management team access to Twitter’s executives as thought partners,” said Manish Maheshwari, managing director, Twitter India.