Alphabet-owned Google has reportedly entered into preliminary talks to purchase popular Indian social media platform ShareChat, a Twitter-backed startup that could be worth more than $1 billion.
The Economic Times of India quoted unnamed sources as saying that the U.S. giant has signed a “term sheet or nonbinding proposal” and is conducting due diligence on the five-year-old startup. The paper also said the parties have appointed investment bankers oversee talks.
The Economic Times said ShareChat recently raised $40 million on a valuation of about $650 million, but quoted a source as saying that “more funds will be required if the company expands globally, taking the platform to countries in the Middle East. It is a good time to sell, since this is a money-intensive business. There is a lot of capital required to get music licenses, influencers etc. Moreover, it is a very competitive market to be in with the launch of so many players.”
The paper said that both ShareChat and Google declined to comment. However, Sundar Pichai, the Indian-born CEO of both Alphabet and Google, announced in July that the company planned to invest $10 billion in Indian tech.
Pichai wrote on a company blog, “When I was young, every new piece of technology brought new opportunities to learn and grow, but I always had to wait for it to arrive from someplace else. Today … a whole new generation of technologies are happening in India first.”
Google already cut a deal earlier this year to buy a $4 billion stake in Indian tech giant Jio Platforms.
ShareChat is a popular Indian social-media platform that operates in 14 regional languages. The Economic Times said the company has 160 million monthly active users, and its new short-video platform Moj has grown to some 80 million users in just months.
The paper said Moj and other short video sites have exploded in popularity after India — which has had border skirmishes over the years with neighboring China — recently banned Chinese-owned TikTok. The Times said many Indian and foreign short-form video operations have rushed in to fill the void, including Facebook Reels and Google Shorts.
Twitter also already owns a stake in ShareChat, having reportedly led a $100 million Series D funding round in the company in 2019.
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