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Mohalla Tech, the parent company of homegrown social media apps <keyword id="8678883" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="moj" source="Orion">Moj</keyword> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/advertising/media/article/bharat-users-are-as-affluent-and-digitally-savvy-as-india-users-sharechat-and-groupm-report/articleshow/89154657.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">ShareChat</a>, is acquiring Times Internet-owned short-video platform <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/india-predicted-to-have-650-million-short-form-video-users-by-2025/articleshow/86792986.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">MX TakaTak</a> for nearly $600 million (about Rs 4,500 crore), sources said here on Thursday. In 2021, Mohalla Tech cumulatively raised $913 million, at a valuation of $3.7 billion. The acquisition, sources close to the development told IANS, will further bolster <keyword id="3358959" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sharechat" source="Orion">ShareChat</keyword>'s short-video market share through the platform Moj. When contacted, the companies declined to immediately comment on the development. Moj and ShareChat together have a 340 million-strong user community, while <keyword id="9555198" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mx-takatak" source="Orion">MX TakaTak</keyword> has nearly 150 million monthly active users (MAUs). Founded in 2015, Mohalla Tech has raised over $1.177 billion across eight fundraising rounds to date. Moj currently has an average user time spent of 34 minutes every day, scoring over 4.5 billion views daily. ShareChat is positioned uniquely with an average user time spent of 31 minutes daily. Since January this year, the company has grown to over 2,000 employees and added several new features as it focuses on building its products to be the leader in the Indian short video and social media space. In December, Mohalla Tech raised $266 million as part of its Series G round. "Both our products (Moj and ShareChat) have been leading the market with the highest monthly active user base, a very active creator set and amazing new partnerships to delight our community. This fresh funding will further strengthen our position," said Ankush Sachdeva, CEO and Co-founder, Moj and ShareChat. After the ban on TikTok and other Chinese short-video making apps, the advertisement revenue from Indian short-form space has been growing at a rapid pace and tripled in just six months. According to a latest report by homegrown consulting firm RedSeer Consulting, short-form content has grown 1.37 times in terms of monthly active user (MAU) and 1.1 times in terms of daily active users from June 2020 when Chinese app TikTok was banned in India. The monthly active users of the short-form segment in the country are expected to grow more than two times to reach 650 million users by 2025, clocking the second spot after television. This significant growth is largely expected to be driven by the new 300 million Internet users that will be added by 2025. "Both Josh and Moj apps have seen a good jump in user and creator net promoter score (NPS) largely driven by users seeing more personalisation, fresher and more filtered content, and creators having access to new tools, increased reach and more collaboration opportunities," said the report.

ShareChat to acquire short video platform MX TakaTak for around ₹4,500 crore

<ul><li>ShareChat has raised a total of $224 million, with the latest Series D funding of $100 million from Twitter</li><li>The platform is now looking at starting its monetization journey and is reaching out to brands that could advertise on its platform</li><li>The platform’s aim is to get every Indian on to the internet, to a social network of its choice where they can converse in a language they are comfortable in</li></ul>It’s been four years since ShareChat, India’s homegrown regional social networking platform came into being. The platform came into the limelight after it raised $100 million funding in Series-D from Twitter, bringing the total raised in funding to $224 million. The company that was founded in 2015 by CEO Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Farid Ahsan, currently has a strong user base of 60 million. It hasn’t been making any money till now, because according to Sunil Kamat, Chief Business Officer, ShareChat, the platform was in the growth-hack mode. As the platform is now starting its monetization journey, it is not only reaching out to brands to partner with them but also planning a major hiring spree. It plans to expand its team from its current strength of 250 to 400 within the next three to four months. While they haven’t put a target figure to where they want to be in the next few years, Kamath shares that for them, the priority is to get more and more people onto the internet and present them with a platform where they are comfortable conversing and sharing their opinions. Edited excerpts: Q) It’s been four years since ShareChat started its journey. How has it been so far? We came into being four years ago, before the data revolution happened. Our journey has been pretty impactful till now. Our co-founders saw a gap in the social media landscape early on and saw a large opportunity for a regional social platform, and that’s where it all began. It's good to be early in the space and we are glad to be at the forefront of change because a lot of people are now trying to mimic our platform. It's a good feeling. Q) How big is the team right now, and how do you plan to scale it up? We will be hiring a lot of talent for the company across various units. Our strength is currently at 250, which we plan to scale up to 400 in the next four months. Q) You say you aren’t chasing targets right now. What are you in it for then? One thing that India has been missing is the ability to get everybody on board. For us, it’s about getting every Indian user to be on a social network of his choice and to make him comfortable with his language. What motivates us is the thought of bringing every Indian user to the Internet and thereby help improve his quality of life over a period of time. Q) What has your revenue model been so far? Our revenue model will be ad-based. Till now, we have been completely focused on growth. However, we are not in this for the short-tem. Our aim is to become one of the largest social networks in India, which means we will be heavily acquisition-based. Now that we have acquired users, it's good to open up to partners, to reach the audience. It's good for our audience too, as they have brands coming on board that they can interact with brands. We will end up building our own journey because it's always been that way for us. We never had parallel system to look up to. But people tend to replicate ShareChat’s journey which is overwhelming. Q) While you’ve been in existence for four years, you haven’t spoken about the platform too much. How have you been reaching out to your audience? Our audience belongs to the Tier II, III and IV markets, so we come up with a lot of regional communication. It's about who you want to communicate to. If I wanted to attract the investor community, I would talk to the mainline media. We are doing a lot of work in the regional side; we work with a network where we get access to regional print, television. However, now that we are starting to monetize the platform, you will see a lot more of us. We were in this growth hack mode all these years and didn’t have too much to talk about. We were just putting our heads together, getting the product fitment right, the initial engagement metrics in place and then scaling up with the acquisition of consumers and audience retention. That journey continues. Now we are aiming at accelerating the reach for the platform, getting people to know about ShareChat and build monetization opportunities for the platform, to see how we can get brands to engage with audiences because it’s a fairly new audience for them as well. Q) You have seen good growth in terms of your consumer base. What have you done right? As a platform, we are very data and insights driven. Since we are a User Generated Content platform, our consumers create content for other users to consume. So, a lot of our learning comes from our users. We see people behaving in a certain manner and modify our platform according to the needs of our consumers. We have a comment section on the platform where we observed people started asking for each other’s numbers and other details. Seeing this, we enabled a chat feature. We also observe the kind of content people are consuming on the platform. Sometimes, a nicely edited content might necessarily not do as well as another piece of normal content that people connect better with. So, these are the insights which we pick up. We unlearn and learn again and that's what keeps us going. Q) Going ahead, what will be your marketing strategy? A lot of our marketing will be focused on driving engagement for consumer on content. We will focus on encouraging consumers to use our camera feature. On the other side, we want to build monetization through brands and marketing channels. Q) Have you seen a lot of interest from marketers? We are still at a very early stage because we are just starting that journey now. I have met top FMCG brands and had amazing conversations. They are the ones who are giving us ideas about how they can use the platform. This is probably the first time that brands will have the ability to put up ads in 14-15 languages on a single platform. It's a challenge and an opportunity at the same time because I don't think digital agencies are equipped to run campaigns in more than a few languages. Q) Are you planning to expand to more languages? As a country, we have 22 official languages. We would love to evaluate a language on the basis of what it brings to the table, whether there’s a significant upside of that language. We have also done dialects like Rajasthani, Haryanvi and Bhojpuri because we are a very visual platform in terms of content. We recently brought in Urdu too. We are currently building a team of people who would be well-versed in these languages too, to be able to help consumers. We have teams for various languages and each of them has learning of their own language. What works in 'A' might not work in 'B' but could work in 'C'. So, they work independently, but there is a lot of common understanding of engaging content. Q) With this new round of funding coming in, what will your key focus areas be? The new round of funding hasn’t changed things much at our end. It's more of a financial transaction at this stage but with every round you raise, you become more responsible, towards your shareholders, and investors. So, we really have to make sure that we have very good stories.

ShareChat is growing its team from 250 to 400 as it moves to monetize its 60 million user base

<ul><li><keyword id="132652" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="cleartrip" source="Orion">Cleartrip</keyword> to increase its workforce to 700 employees, a three-fold increase from October last year.</li><li>Earlier this quarter, the <keyword id="7254678" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="travel-aggregator" source="Orion">travel aggregator</keyword> had increased its workforce by 60%.</li><li>The hiring will be done in technology and product teams and across various destinations in India.</li></ul>Cleartrip, a Bengaluru-based travel aggregator website, is looking forward to ramping up its workforce by 400 employees by December 2022. Hiring of 400 employees will take the workforce to a total of 700 employees, a three-fold increase from 240 employees in October 2021. The hiring will be done in technology and product teams and across various destinations in India — Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab. Earlier this quarter, the travel aggregator had increased its workforce by 60%. Large number of hiring was dedicated towards its plans to scale up its hotel category business. When asked about the reason behind this massive hiring spree, Ayyappan Rajagopal, chief executive officer (CEO) of Cleartrip said, “Cleartrip is actively hiring for their upcoming tech park in Chennai where all the technology-related backhand work will be handled so that we can reach the target of 400 employees by the end of this year.” He further said, “By hiring top talent from the industry across levels, we are infusing fresh energy and ideas into our teams, setting us up for success. As we move forward in 2022, one of our key goals this year is to bring more offerings, scale up our existing verticals to bring more digitally-enabled travel experiences for our customers to boost their confidence while travelling during what has been a difficult time.” The announcement comes after Cleartrip’s acquisition by the Flipkart Group, part of US-based Walmart Group, which has accelerated the brand’s growth strategy to make an end-to-end travel app for the company by the end of 2022. In 2021, e-commerce giant Flipkart had <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/flipkart-acquires-cleartrip-in-an-effort-to-cement-its-position-in-the-travel-booking-segment/articleshow/82081931.cms">acquired</a> a 100% stake in Cleartrip, making it a Flipkart Group company. Cleartrip has raised a total of $56.4 million in funding over 7 rounds, as per data from Crunchbase. Their latest funding was raised on October 29 last year in a secondary market round. Founded in 2006, Cleartrip is an online travel firm for booking flights, train tickets, hotel reservations, and activities in India and the Middle East countries. It holds offices across India, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/sharechat-to-acquire-short-video-platform-mx-takatak-for-around-4500-crore/articleshow/89479244.cms">ShareChat to acquire short video platform MX TakaTak for around ₹4,500 crore</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/two-indian-cities-are-in-global-top-10-of-the-most-congested-places-to-drive-through-take-a-guess/slidelist/89476030.cms">Two Indian cities are in global top 10 of the most congested places to drive through – Take a guess</a>

Online travel booking portal Cleartrip to increase its workforce by 400 by the end of this year

<ul><li>The round was led by TrueScale, with participation from Omidyar India, Accel and others. </li><li>TrueScale’s Sameer Nath will be joining the company’s Board of Directors with this round. </li><li><keyword id="3598653" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="axio">Axio</keyword> has marked its presence in over 40 countries across the globe, including India and Europe.</li></ul>Boston and Bengaluru-based medical device company <keyword id="1365453" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Axio-Biosolutions">Axio Biosolutions</keyword>, which develops hemostatic and advanced wound care products, has raised $6 million in a bridge round of funding led by TrueScale Capital. The company plans to use this capital to expand its commercial presence in the United States and the European Union. Besides this, it will also look to strengthen its operations in the Indian subcontinent. “Axio’s vision is to deliver disruptive products in the surgical and wound care space globally through our patented biomaterial technology. This Series B2 funding will help us to grow in developed markets and expand our roster of regulatorily approved products,” the company’s founder Leo Mavely said in a press note. The company’s existing investors Omidyar Network India, University of California-Ratan Tata Fund and Accel also participated in the round. Overall, the company has raised $20 million to date. Founded in 2007, Axio Solution develops proprietary products using biomaterial-bases technology for the hemostatic (capable of stopping the blood flow) and advanced wound care market. It has marked its presence in over 40 countries across the globe, including India and Europe. The company claims that its first-aid dressing, which is made of a natural biopolymer Chitosan, can stop bleeding within two-three minutes of application. MaxioCel, a wound care product made by Axio, can heal chronic wounds like pressure ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers, venous leg ulcers, cavity wounds, post-operative surgical wounds and more. “Axio’s products are a testament to the kind of technology and manufacturing expertise being built out of India for the world. We have been impressed by Axio’s R&amp;D [research and development] capability along with their capital efficiency in building out an intellectual property-led medtech company,” TrueScale Capital’s managing partner Sameer Nath said. Nath will also be joining the company’s Board of Directors with this round. SEE ALSO <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/byjus-last-two-acquisitions-and-a-deal-with-disney-reveal-its-american-dream/articleshow/84783749.cms">Byju's last two acquisitions and a deal with Disney reveal its American dream ⁠— one that is anchored in India</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/sharechat-is-now-valued-at-2-88-billion-with-a-145-million-fundraise/articleshow/84785903.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Sharechat is now valued at $2.88 billion, with a $145 million fundraise</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/lok-sabha-mp-mahua-moitra-says-delisting-of-adani-power-need-to-be-looked-into/articleshow/84752594.cms">Adani Group in spotlight again — Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra says delisting of Adani Power needs to be ‘looked into’</a>

Ratan Tata’s fund-backed Axio Biosolutions raises $6 million to strengthen its position in India

<ul><li>The company has also managed to cut down its adjusted net losses to $21.3 million, from $29 million in the same quarter the previous year. </li><li>The company’s total liquidity stood at $174 million as of June 2020 – which will give the company a runway for the next 6-8 quarters. </li><li>Check out the latest news and updates on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/">Business Insider.</a></li></ul>India’s largest <keyword id="977682" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="online-travel">online travel</keyword> aggregator <keyword id="54613" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="makemytrip">MakeMyTrip</keyword> earnings results for the April-June quarter show the extent of impact that this pandemic has had on the travel and tourism industry. <keyword id="255878" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="MMT">MMT</keyword>’s revenues have fallen by 95.5% from $141.7 million to $6.3 million. However, the company has also managed to cut down its adjusted net losses to $21.3 million, from $29 million in the same quarter the previous year. But that doesn’t bother the company as much as the weakness of its peers excites it. The management said it is keen on acquisitions, which will help beef up its market share in online travel bookings. <div type="image" title="MMT charts1." msid="77677135" hostid="261"></div> However, it may not come as a surprise for investors as the stock has lost 17% of its value in the last one month. Here’s how the revenue has decreased for the company across segments. MakeMyTrip currently has over 50% market share in all the verticals. <table style="border-width: initial; border-style: none; width: 468pt; table-layout: fixed;"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Sectors </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Decrease in revenue </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Air Ticketing </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">91.6% </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Hotels and packages </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">98.6% </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Bus ticketing </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">98.2% </td></tr></tbody></table> Acquisitions on the cards The company had $174 million in cash as of June 2020, which will give the company a runway for the next 6-8 quarters, said Mohit Kabra, Chief Financial Officer of MMT. The company has said that even though it has zero debt, it has opened avenues for additional funds to explore any growth opportunities that might come their way. Analysts too expect MMT to explore acquisition opportunities. “We expect the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak will lead to consolidation in the OTA space given stretched peer balance sheets, which could lead to more than 10 percentage points of market share gain for MMYT (in hotels) over the next three years,” said a recent report by Goldman Sachs. The company has also secured credit and guarantee facilities of approximately $100 million. “Which includes a $70 million facility from an affiliate of our largest shareholder and the balance from a commercial bank in India,” said the company’s statement. MMT’s top management remained hopeful of the quarters to come as they said that travel has seen recovery since July. “We have begun to see early signs of recovery in our domestic travels business. Our first quarter performance reflects the bulk of the impact the lockdown had on our business. During the quarter, we took painful but necessary fixed cost reductions and fully flexed our variable costs to ensure we had ample liquidity to re-emerge stronger from the quarter ,” said <keyword id="6467279" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Deep-Kalra">Deep Kalra</keyword>, Group Chairman of MakeMyTrip. The company is also planning to restore salaries of frontline workers and middle management staff by September, as it hopes the momentum of the business will be assured. CORRECTION: The headline has been updated after the company management reached out to Business Insider. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/heres-why-makemytrip-oyo-lemon-tree-and-likes-may-reap-the-most-out-of-the-long-term-recovery-in-hotels/articleshow/77670756.cms">Here's why MakeMyTrip, OYO, Lemon Tree and likes may reap the most out of the long-term recovery in hotels</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/this-startups-popular-sleep-internship-with-1-one-lakh-stipend-is-back-netflix-show-indian-matchmaking-face-reader-is-the-intern-selector/articleshow/77673059.cms">This startup’s popular ‘sleep internship’ with ₹1 lakh stipend is back – Netflix show Indian Matchmaking’s face reader is the intern selector</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/google-eyes-indias-sharechat-as-microsoft-goes-after-tiktok-in-the-us-heres-why-it-makes-sense/articleshow/77667345.cms">Google eyes India’s ShareChat as Microsoft goes after TikTok in the US — here’s why it makes sense</a>

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ShareChat to acquire short video platform MX TakaTak for around ₹4,500 crore

IANS

ShareChat is growing its team from 250 to 400 as it moves to monetize its 60 million user base

Samarpita Banerjee

Online travel booking portal Cleartrip to increase its workforce by 400 by the end of this year

Vaamanaa Sethi

Ratan Tata’s fund-backed Axio Biosolutions raises $6 million to strengthen its position in India

Kritti Bhalla

Debt-free MakeMyTrip sets aside money for investment opportunities — while its own revenue is down 95%

Sanchita Dash

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