Mohalla Tech owned vernacular social networking platform, Sharechat has raised Ra 720 crores ($100m) in a new funding round led by existing investors Shunwei Capital and Xiaomi together with Hong Kong-based Morningside Ventures, DST Global, Lightspeed, SAIF Partners, India Quotient and Venture Highway, reported YourStory and VC Circle. The fresh funding will also see Sharechat’s valuation surge up to Rs 2680 crores (around $400m), a nearly five times jump in its valuation from its previous fund-raise last year, making one of the hottest consumer internet startups in the country.

The Link Legal team represented Sharechat and its founders in the fundraising and comprising of partner Manish Gupta, principal associate Vinu Peter, and associate Rashi Singh.

Gunderson Dettmer Singapore along with ARA Law acted as legal counsel for existing investors Shunwei Capital, Xiaomi and Lightspeed US in the deal.

Update 2 January 2019: Jerome Merchant and Partners advised VH Capital led by a team of partner Vishnu Jerome along with associate Rishabh Gupta.

Morningside Ventures, SAIF Partners, Venture Highway, India Quotient and DST Globalwere represented by their in-house legal teams.

Founded in 2015 by IIT-Kanpur alumni Ankush Sachdeva, Farid Ahsan, and Bhanu Singh, Bangalore-based Sharechat is a regional language social networking app that allows users to create, discover and share content such as videos, jokes, songs and images. With the current fund-raise, Sharechat aims to enter into new markets, diversify into new categories and work on monetising its service through advertising, influencer marketing, and in-app transactions.

2018-09-20

This deal report is based on a firm's press release and may be only partially complete. Some firms or names of advisers may be therefore be missing.