ShareChat has raised fresh funding of $99 million (approx Rs 720 crore) led by existing investor Shunwei Capital, reports the Economic Times. New investors Morningside Ventures of Hong Kong and Jesmond Global, an affiliate of DST Global, also participated in the round, along with existing investors Xiaomi, SAIF Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company will use the funding to develop its core product offering to diversify into other categories, according to VCcircle. We have reached out to the company for a confirmation, and will update this when we hear from them. With this round, the Bangalore–based company has raised a total of $124 million ever since it began operations in 2015. Founded in 2015, ShareChat is an Indic language social networking app which puts together features of WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, and focuses on non-English conversant users in India. It lets users make posts to a ‘wall’, add images, GIFs, videos and audio clips, view posts from others, add and follow friends, and so on. It also has a ‘treasure’ section, where it lists posts based on categories like romantic, humorous etc. The app also lists news, horoscopes, daily tips, devotional services and other miscellaneous services. Importantly, the app is not available in English, but in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam, Telugu, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Odia, Assamese, Bhojpuri, Haryanvi and Rajasthani. ShareChat has clarified that content for each language is unique. As of January this year, Sharechat claimed to have 8 million monthly users. Previous funding In January, the company secured Series…
