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With $ 500 Million Mohalla Tech Aims to Weigh Over $ 5 Billion

CIO Insider Team | Friday, 17 December, 2021
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Mohalla Tech, a computer software company, is hoping to raise the buck beyond $ 500 million while it sits through its Series G fund raising round with the aim of boosting its valuation over $ 5 billion.

During this round, Mohalla Tech has raised $ 266 million (Rs.1,995 crore) led by Alkeon Capital at a valuation of $ 3.7 billion.

The company plans to apply the latest funds in areas concerning social as well as live commerce, including on its growing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) team which presently has a strength of over a 100 people across the US, Europe and India.

Additionally, the round is said to pour the funds over MXTakaTak, as ShareChat seeks to consolidate its space in the short video space. The acquisition deal is expected close in the coming months, with hopes of ShareChat raising an additional tranche as a part of the same fundraising round by then.

This fresh funding will further strengthen our position and help us deliver immersive social experiences to our community, says Ankush Sachdeva, CEO and Co-founder, Moj and Sharechat

Temasek Holdings, Moore Strategic Ventures (MSV), Harbourvest, and India Quotient also participated in the financing round. In the next months, further overseas investors are likely to join the round.

The current fundraising rund happens to be Mohalla tech’s third funding this year, no sooner it became a unicorn with funding from Tiger Global. Thus far, the company is said to have $ 913 million with a cumulative raise of $ 1,77 billion in capital over eight funding rounds from the time of its inception.

Now the company cherishes over 2000 employees on its platform.

“Moj and Sharechat have been growing at an explosive pace. Both our products have been leading the market with the highest monthly active user base, a very active creator set and amazing new partnerships to delight our community. This fresh funding will further strengthen our position and help us deliver immersive social experiences to our community”, says Ankush Sachdeva, CEO and Co-founder, Moj and Sharechat.

By the end of 2023, the company hopes to accomplish a goal of $100 million in annualized creator earnings through social and live commerce efforts.

Farid Ahsan, Ankush Sachdeva, and Bhanu Pratap Singh developed Sharechat in 2015. Following the ban of ByteDance-backed popular short video app TikTok in India in June last year, the company has been focusing on building Moj as a platform.

Moj has a user base of 160 million people and a creative base of more than 50 million. Sharechat has a user base of 180 million people and a creator base of over 32 million, according to the company.

Mohalla Tech competes in the short video arena with VerSe Innovation, the parent company of Josh and Dailyhunt, and InMobi affiliate Glance.

To take advantage of the live-commerce possibility, Moj recently announced a partnership with Flipkart that will allow customers to buy tagged Flipkart marketplace products right from the video screen.

Sharechat has made a number of purchases as well. It bought Memer, a meme-sharing site, Circle Internet, HPF Films, a video production company, and Elanic, a social commerce platform.

According to consultancy firm RedSeer, the short-video category is likely to overtake internet giants like Facebook and Google as the second-largest segment in terms of time spent.

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