ShareChat wins Young Turks Startup of the Year award

The startup scenario in India is fast gaining momentum. With more accelerators and incubators being instituted, the number of startups has also increased.

As per Nasscom, 1,200 new tech startups mushroomed in India, taking the tally of tech startups to 7,700 in the country. Also, the pace of growth in the number of startups added in India doubled 15% year-on-year in 2018.

These startups are offering unique solutions to simplest problems. CNBC TV18’s 14^th edition of Indian Business Leader Awards (IBLA) recognised the hardwork and dedication of the startups.

Amongst many, the award for Young Turks Startup of the Year went to Sharechat. ShareChat, a tech startup based in Bengaluru, is a vernacular social network platform.

It was founded by three IIT Kanpur alumni, Ankush Sachdeva, Farid Ahsan and Bhanu Singh in October 2015.

ShareChat was started with a vision to provide a comfortable digital space not only for the people who want to use the internet in their mother tongue, but also for first-time internet users, where everyone can share their thoughts, emotions, opinions; and become friends with others without any language barrier.

It has a user base of over 25 million users spread across the country and provides the platform in 14 languages including Hindi, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Odia, Kannada, Assamese, Haryanvi, Rajasthani and Bhojpuri.

In a span of three years, ShareChat reached 25 million monthly active users, 10 million daily active users, 60 billion download, 25 million user generated content created/posted per month and approximately five billion video plays per month.

The startup raised Rs 735 crore in Series C funding concluded in September 2018, led by Shunwei Capital and others such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, Xiaomi, Yuri Milner, SAIF Partners and Morningside Venture Capital.

As of today, ShareChat has raised a total of Rs 912 crore.

Sharechat’s YOY growth story indicates how more and more people are connecting to the internet with the power of native language.

While deciding the winner for the award, the jury members sought to recognise a privately held startup that disrupted the industry and proved its mettle on parameters such as innovation, growth, dealing with legacy businesses in their segment and leadership by the founding team.

The criteria was for companies incorporated since 2010 that received funding (PE/VC) in the last three years.

The 'Young Turks' team further selected four companies based on personal interactions.