Homegrown short video sharing app Chingari raises $1.3 million in seed funding

The fund raised from AngelList India, iSeed, Village Global, LogX Ventures, and NowFloats, will be primarily used to hire more talent to accelerate product development, ramp up the platform’s reach and consumer engagement.

Indian-made short video sharing app Chingari has raised funding of $ 1.3 million (almost Rs 10 crore) in a seed round led by a clutch of investors including AngelList India, Utsav Somani’s iSeed, Village Global, LogX Ventures, and Jasminder Singh Gulati of NowFloats.

Chingari came into prominence after the ban of Tiktok amid anti-Chinese sentiment. It recently emerged as the top winner in the “Social” category of “AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge” which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 4 with the aim of showcasing India as one of the leading app developing countries globally.

The AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge showed that many Indian app developers are now bracing the challenge of developing globally competitive apps.

This fund will be primarily used to hire more talent to accelerate product development, ramp up the platform’s reach and consumer engagement, the company said in a statement on Sunday. “We’re delighted that investors saw the immense potential in our vision and chose to join the Chingari journey,” said Sumit Ghosh, Co-founder, and CEO, Chingari App, said.

“Sumit and team Chingari has shown how to ship product features at a pace that I have not come across before,” Utsav Somani, Partner, AngelList India, said. “They have their ears to the ground, listening to users, and are engaging with them on all channels to translate that into the best short video content experience for Bharat’s demanding users.”

Every Chingari user can download and upload videos, chat with friends, interact with new people, share content, and browse through feed, among many other things. Chingari also allows its users to get creative with WhatsApp status, videos, audio clips, GIF stickers, and photos, and become popular.

Besides English and Hindi, the app can be used in multiple Indian languages like Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu.

“While Chingari has grown at breakneck speed, it also suggests that India always had the ability to build our own. With Chingari winning the Atma Nirbhar App Innovation Challenge, we have reached a tipping point in the adoption of homemade products. For Bharat by Bharat, was delayed initially, but won’t be denied anymore,” Jasminder Singh Gulati, Founder, NowFloats said.

Chingari CEO Ghosh said the company is in talks with music labels for music licensing and reaching out to celebrities to get them on board on the platform. As of today, Chingari said to have a 25-million strong user base and records more than 3 million active daily users. The company says, Chingari pays it’s content creators a 30% cut in what it makes from brands.

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