Homegrown video-sharing app Chingari raises $1.3 million in seed funding

Indian social media app Chingari has raised $1.3 million in seed funding. The round was led by venture capitalists AngelList India, Utsav Somani’s iSeed, Village Global, LogX Ventures, and Jasminder Singh Gulati of NowFloats.

The company says it will use the funds to hire more talent to accelerate product development, ramp up the platform, and make Chingari engaging and consumer focused.

"We are happy to have amazing investors like AngelList India, Utsav Somani’s iSeed, Village Global and its amazing network of entrepreneurs and global leaders, LogX Ventures and some reputed angels," said Sumit Ghosh, Co-founder, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chingari App, adding that they are delighted that investors saw the immense potential in their vision and chose to join the Chingari journey.

Chingari, the fully Indian custom-designed social platform has a 25-million strong user base and records more than 3 million active daily users. On the app, Chingari allows users to download and upload videos, chat with friends, interact with new people, share content, browse through feed, and much more.

It also allows users to get creative and become popular with their WhatsApp status, videos, audio clips, GIF stickers as well as photos.

Indian short video apps like Chingari and Mitron have risen to fame following the government’s ban on Chinese social media app TikTok.

Chingari also pays content creators a 30 percent cut from what it makes from brands and ensures transparency and highest data privacy standards. The app is available in multiple languages including English, Hindi, Bangla, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu. It can also be downloaded for free on the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store.

Upon winning the Atma Nirbhar Bharat App Challenge, Village Global took to Twitter to congratulate the team:

Congratulations to @sumitgh85 and the @Chingari_IN team! Excited for what's ahead! https://t.co/qBCjLz8ZLI

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— Village Global (@villageglobal)

Sumit Ghosh also tweeted in response:

Thanks a lot! @GoI_MeitY @narendramodi
@rsprasad @SanjayDhotreMP sirs. Well done team @Chingari_IN, all those late nights and hard work paid off! cc @somani_utsav @villageglobal @AngelList @AngelListIndia @eriktorenberg @AshishFafadia @GulatiSinghJ We are getting just started!! pic.twitter.com/CHCqBpzAzP

— Sumit Ghosh (@sumitgh85)

“Sumit and team Chingari have shown how to ship product features at a pace that I have not come across before. They have their ears to the ground, listening to users, and are engaging with them on all channels to translate that into the best short video content experience for Bharat’s demanding users," said Utsav Somani, Partner, AngelList India.

Jasminder Singh Gulati, Founder, NowFloats, also said with Chingari winning the Atma Nirbhar App Innovation Challenge, a tipping point is reached in the adoption of homemade products. For Bharat, by Bharat, was delayed initially, but won't be denied anymore, he said.