Once a promising Indian social network, ShareChat lost its way, and is now hoping to make a comeback in the absence of ByteDance’s Helo and TikTok.
It wasn’t too long ago when ShareChat was the talk of the town. Birthed in late 2015, the Bengaluru-based company sold a promising story—a social network for those who want to communicate in their own, local languages. Targeted only at Indian language users—ShareChat still doesn’t support English language on its platform—it offered a service to chat and share images and videos in a way nobody did at the time. And in just about two years, it had everyone’s attention. Investors such as venture fund Shunwei and smartphone maker Xiaomi were all interested in what this company was building.
Five years …
Harveen is a co-founder at The Morning Context, and leads our Internet coverage, overseeing a team of reporters writing on startups and tech. She has previously worked as a media, consumer and tech reporter at The Ken and Mint. At The Morning Context, she writes on startups, venture capital, consumer and media businesses—from e-commerce to healthtech to streaming.
Editor, Internet
harveen@mailtmc.com
Mumbai