Indian content-sharing platform ShareChat has raised $502 million in funding from Tiger Global, Snap and some existing investors such as Twitter.
The funding was led by U.S. venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners and American investment firm Tiger, ShareChat said on Thursday.
Tiger Global and Snap, owner of popular photo-messaging app Snapchat, are new investors in the Indian platform.
The funding signals growing investor interest in Indian social media apps that are looking to tap into pent-up demand after New Delhi banned dozens of Chinese apps, including ByteDance’s TikTok, following an India-China border clash last year.
Moj and other similar alternatives of the popular video app TikTok have been finding favour with users in India, where smartphone use has been rapidly surging.
ShareChat will use new funds to focus on technology initiatives and support user growth.
“With this infusion of capital we would continue to aggressively grow our user base,” ShareChat CEO Ankush Sachdeva said.
The ShareChat app has 160 million users in India and Moj has 120 million. Moj and other similar TikTok alternatives have been finding favour with users in India, where smartphone use has been rapidly surging.
ShareChat has now raised $766 million over six funding rounds.
