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Bhanu Pratap Singh, Farid Ahsan, and Ankur Saxena had one goal: to build a strong product and tech company out of India.
The IIT Kanpur grads had participated in hackathons, built different kinds of products and tech offerings during their college years, and were sure that they wanted to build a strong and stable business.
Founders of ShareChat
When they graduated in 2014, the trio were considering building a debating platform. However, they soon realised that debates didn’t have mass appeal.
“We had met Madhukar of India Quotient in 2014 and he had suggested looking at ideas that would possibly touch new internet users. The internet was then restricted to metro cities. Most were still using WhatsApp,” Bhanu says.
ShareChat dials up China s Tencent to raise $200 million in funding
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Synopsis
Twitter-backed ShareChat, which operates TikTok s Indian rival Moj, may choose to route the funding via a Europe-based entity to avoid the China investment tag, in light of India s tightened FDI policy.
Agencies
The significant financial investment could at a later stage entail a change in management control of ShareChat.
Twitter-backed homegrown social media platform ShareChat is in talks with Chinese technology giant Tencent to raise $200 million through optionally convertible debentures, sources told ET.
The funding is likely to be routed via a Europe-based entity to avoid the China investment tag, in light of tightened foreign direct investment norms which the government put in place last year following an escalating border conflict with the northern neighbour.
ShareChat, has been focused on
building India-specific products from the beginning.
Prior to joining ShareChat, Gaurav was the Head of Product at Uber, who spearheaded AI, Data, and the marketplace platforms at the ride-hailing company. In a career spanning nearly three decades, he has also held senior tech and product leadership positions at Facebook, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Gaurav also launched Guruji.com, a regional language search engine, which was acquired by Flipkart in 2015.
Presently building ShareChat Labs in San Francisco, Gaurav believes what matters most for any engineer or techie is the impact a product or solution can have on the customers.