Ever wished for a vernacular social network platform? In an effort to make communication and accessibility easier, ShareChat, a Bengaluru-based startup, was launched in October 2015 by three IIT Kanpur alumni members — Ankush Sachdeva, Farid Ahsan and Bhanu Singh. The platform was started with a vision to provide a comfortable digital space not only for people who want to use the internet in their mother tongue but also for first-time internet users.

The home-grown platform, developed keeping in mind the needs of Indian audience across the country, is currently available in 14 Indian languages that includes Hindi, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Odia, Kannada, Assamese, Haryanvi, Rajasthani and Bhojpuri.

The user-generated content platform allows users to create posts, follow people, consume all types of multimedia content, message one-on-one and even share things with other communication platforms.
“Tamil Nadu is one of the fastest growing user bases for ShareChat. The main goal is to remain locally relevant.

Keeping the everyday need of digital content and infotainment of first-time web users in mind, we’ve made the platform easy to use and entertaining where individuals can express their sentiments, showcase their talents, discuss trends and meet new individuals having similar interests,” says Sunil Kamath, the chief business officer of ShareChat. We learn that, while exploring information — romance, humour and Kollywood are the most preferred genres among ShareChat users in Tamil Nadu, especially the youngsters. Based on a ShareChat report for the Tamil Nadu region, there is growing popularity in the state among users from locations like Kancheepuram, Thiruvallur, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruppur, Salem and Vellore among others.

The app has five million monthly active users in the Tamil language. “People use this platform to learn food recipes, write poems, share rangoli designs and more. We keep track of the activities and ensure that no offensive posts are uploaded. We don’t entertain opinions on politics and controversial topics. We want the app to stay relevant to even the remotest of villages, and be a boon for regional language speakers,” adds Sunil. 

The number of users has shot up from one million in 2016 to 25 million active users currently. We are told that the platform has raised 720 crores, and will double its headcount to 150. 

In a nutshell

● ShareChat is a user-generated content platform launched in 2015
● In the last quarter of 2018, it raised a funding of USD 100 million 
● It flaunts 25 lakh active users currently