Google and Snap are in talks to invest in ShareChat
ShareChat, an Indian social network that added Twitter as an investor in 2019, may receive support from two US companies soon.
The sources pointed out that the startup, which is based in Bangalore, is in advanced stages of talks to raise money from Google and Snap.
The sources said: The new financing round is scheduled to be greater than $ 200 million, with Google alone financing more than $ 100 million of it.
The new financing round is supposed to help lift ShareChat's market value to more than $ 1 billion.
Twitter, along with two other existing investors, is also participating in the new round, as ShareChat raised about $ 264 million so far, and its market value was estimated at $ 700 million last year.
The sources warned that the terms of the deal might change and the talks might not turn into an investment, and local TV channel ET Now reported last year that Google was in talks to acquire ShareChat.
ShareChat serves up to 60 million users a month across about 15 regional languages, and has a large following in small Indian cities and towns.
On the one hand, Twitter and Snap are struggling to gain users outside of urban cities in the world's second largest internet market, and both Twitter and Snap have about 50 million active monthly users in India.
Ankush Sachdeva, co-founder and CEO of ShareChat, said: The app is growing exponentially and users spend an average of more than 30 minutes on the app each day.
If the deal is executed, it will be the parent company's first investment for the Snapchat application in an Indian startup.
ShareChat runs a short video app, and the startup said its app, Moj, had collected more than 80 million monthly active users as of September last year.
Google announced last year that it plans to invest $ 10 billion in India over the next five years, and days after the announcement, the company invested $ 4.5 billion in Indian telecom giant Jio Platforms.
Google and Facebook, which invested $ 5.7 billion in Jio Platforms last year, reached more than 400 million users in the country.