Moj, ShareChat-parent latest to join Unicorn club, raises $502 million in latest funding round

Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global led the latest funding round in Mohalla Tech. Snap Inc, Twitter and India Quotient also participated in the round.

Prior to joining ShareChat, Varghese was the Global President at Wavemaker, a WPP-group global media network. (ShareChat)

Mohalla Tech, the parent company behind Moj and ShareChat, is the latest to join India's Unicorn club. The company said it had raised $502 million in the latest round at a valuation of a little over $2.1 billion.

Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global led the latest funding round. Snap Inc, Twitter and India Quotient also participated, according to the company.

“With this infusion of capital we would continue to aggressively grow our user base, build a world-class org in India & US and further strengthen our creator community, AI-powered recommendation engine and platform health,” said Ankush Sachdeva, CEO & Co-founder, ShareChat in a note.

Since its launch in 2015, Mohalla Tech has raised more than $766 million across six fundraising rounds so far. While ShareChat, an Indic language social media platform, remained its flagship offering, the company last year introduced Moj, a short-video sharing platform.

Moj is said to have more than 120 million monthly active users. According to Mohalla Tech, Moj and ShareChat together have about 280 million members.

That said, India's Unicorn club has continued to grow in 2021 as well. Earlier this week, fintech startup Cred joined the elite club after a $215 million Series D funding round at a valuation of $2.2 billion. Kunal Shah-led Cred had launched just three years ago and focuses on rewarding customers for paying their credit-card bills on time.

Another fintech startup, Groww, raised $83 million in a Series D financing round at a valuation of $1 billion. The startup raised capital from Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, YC Continuity and Propel Venture Partners, reports TechCrunch.

Social commerce platform Meesho and e-pharmacy firm PharmEasy have also joined the Unicorn club in the last seven days.