The largest homegrown social media company in India, ShareChat, is planning an IPO within the next 12 to 18 months. The platform has spent years battling high cash burn, valuation cuts, and intense competition from global technology giants. Mohalla Tech Private Limited, which operates Bengaluru-based ShareChat, has confirmed that it will target an IPO after achieving sustained cash flow and a sharp reduction in losses.
ShareChat IPO: Operational Turnaround
ShareChat Co-founder and CEO Ankush Sachdeva stated that the company now has better predictability in its business model after transitioning from a growth-at-all-costs strategy to a disciplined operational structure.
For the last nine months, the company has remained cashflow positive, and its FY26 revenue is expected to hit the INR 1,000 crore mark, a 38% YoY growth. On the other hand, the company’s EBITDA losses are also expected to decline to below INR 200 crore compared to nearly INR 800 crore in FY25. Management also expects that April 2026 will be the month of ‘All Green’ for the company.
ShareChat IPO: Business Overview
ShareChat was founded in 2015 by Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Farid Ahsan. The company’s business revolves around regional-language internet users in India. Unlike global social media platforms that focus on English-speaking audiences, ShareChat targets Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and other Indian languages.
The company currently supports content sharing and social networking across more than 15 Indian languages. Its ecosystem includes short videos, live streaming, audio rooms, messaging, status updates, creator-led communities, and algorithm-driven content recommendations.
The platform gained traction when the Government of India banned TikTok in 2020. The company launched Moj within 30 hours of the ban announcement, which helps the company to capture a large portion of short-video audience in India. The company is one of the largest domestic digital social media platforms in India, as it has nearly 20 crore active monthly users.
ShareChat has reduced its initial dependency on advertising revenue and expanding into newer monetization avenues, including subscriptions, creator-focused monetization tools, and microtransactions. ShareChat also optimised spending on infrastructure, particularly in cloud and server costs, which improved unit economics in the last two years.
Final Words
ShareChat’s IPO plans also come after the company was valued at ~USD 5 billion during the peak of the technology funding cycle in 2022. However, after the global reset in internet and technology valuations, its latest estimated valuation has declined to around USD 1.5 billion. Management has acknowledged the correction but maintained that the eventual IPO valuation will depend on market conditions closer to the listing period.
Despite the lower valuation, ShareChat continues to remain one of India’s most heavily funded social media startups. The company has raised nearly USD 1.2 billion from prominent investors, including Google, Temasek Holdings, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Its recent funding activity also included a debt round of approximately USD 16 million in August 2024.
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Rajat Bhati has a strong technical background and 5 years of experience in the stock market. He focuses on equity research, technical analysis, IPO valuations, and risk management, helping investors make clearer, data-backed decisions. Today, he works full-time to educate people about the opportunities in IPO market.
