According to Economic Times, Google is in talks with the Indian social media application start-up ShareChat that has over a 100million+ downloads on the Google Play store alone. The company headquartered in Bangalore was launched in 2015 and has since gained popularity.
The ShareChat app that emphasizes the “Make in India vision” of 2014, supports Indic 15 languages and has an estimate of 160 million monthly users.
Why would Google acclaim ShareChat?
ShareChat is an Indian app and quickly gained a few million new users after the ban of Tik Tok back in September along with 117 other Chinese apps in India, following which the company also launched Moj- an app for creating short videos like TikTok, and has gained over 80 million active users, in a short period.
The growth and success of ShareChat is a rare success story in the Indian startup ecosystem.
Google’s plan to expand it’s market and user base in the Indian subcontinent is what made it eye ShareChat. The internet giant is ready to offer a value of $1 billion for ShareChat, to make use of its popularity with the non- English speaking audience in the country.
Will the acquisition be successful?
ShareChat has already seen investments from Twitter, India Quotient, and 12 other investors that have brought total funding of $262.8 million, so Google’s offer might hang around some time until the company comes up with a decision.
The company’s value rose to $650 million in the funding round in September this year, with the Moj app also coming around with a notable number of new users each month. ShareChat is also set to venture into Silicon Valley for research and development.
With Google’s plan to invest $10 billion in the Indian market in the next five years, as it had promised, Google might come in talks with ShareChat for acquisition with good compensation. It is eminent that Google has already invested in Reliance Jio, earlier this year for a 7.73% stake, as Reliance decided to sell shares to expand its e-commerce and settling its debts in the telecom sector.
If Google acquires ShareChat, the founders of the company might likely be stakeholders in the future.
