India's ShareChat App Raises $18.2 Million from Xiaomi and Others

Indian social media platform, ShareChat, which allows users to communicate and share posts in regional languages has witnessed a major influx of users since the launch of Jio. With the aim of enhancing its services, ShareChat has raised $xviii.2 1000000 (~₹116 crores) from Xiaomi Singapore and its sister business firm Shunwei Capital.

The chat platform will utilize these funds to improve its technology, especially upgrading its servers. The amount will too be used to rent fresh talent in the areas of bogus intelligence and car learning. ShareChat will also improve its cloud infrastructure to improve the experience of its eight million users likewise as to attract new 1 aboard.

Regional Language Chat App ShareCha

Equally per the records filed past the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Xiaomi infused $five.76 million (~₹37 crores) while Shunwei Capital invested $two.82 million (~₹xviii crores). The remaining amount ($nine.62 million) was poured in by existing investors including SAIF Partners (~₹27 crores), Lightspeed Partners (~₹19 crores), India Quotient (~₹13 crores) and Venture Highway (~₹1.vii crores).

ShareChat has 21 million downloads on Android, as per Inc42, and supports communications in ten regional languages i.e. Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marāthi, Odia, Kannada, Gujarati, Malayalam, and Punjabi. The app is not available in English or for iOS devices. The platform witnesses v million pieces of content including text posts, videos, audios, and GIFs beingness shared per day, and also allows users to share content with friends via WhatsApp.

It must exist noted that, in order to promote adoption of smartphones irrespective of English literacy, the Indian authorities has mandated smartphone manufacturers in Republic of india to include support for regional languages. Xiaomi, as the leading smartphone make in India (alongside Samsung every bit of November 2017), evidently has a special interest in regional communications that will help it maintain its reward in the country.

ShareChat founders merits that the consumption of content especially videos has surged multi-fold, thank you to Jio'south affordable high-speed data offerings. Further, India witnessed 80% of the cyberspace traffic originating from smartphones, equally per Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers' Internet Trends 2017 written report. This is the second-highest proportion in the world and Xiaomi – which is planning to expand its roots to content, hyperlocal, and fintech services – seems to exist a solid position with this investment.