Chingari Raises $13 Mn In Funding Round Led By OnMobile This investment will allow Chingari to accelerate its growth from 56 million users to over 100 million users
By Prabhjeet Bhatla •
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Homegrown short-form video app Chingari announced on Thursday that it has raised $13 million in a funding round led by OnMobile.
This investment will allow Chingari to accelerate its growth from 56 million users to over 100 million users.
"We are very excited about this investment and partnership bringing millions of users to the new ONMO gaming service while providing immediate business value and increased user reach for both companies," said François-Charles Sirois, executive chairman, OnMobile.
As part of the deal, OnMobile will integrate and distribute its direct-to-consumer ONMO gaming platform on the Chingari app and collaborate on other product integrations to serve millions of users. Chingari will use the funds to enhance its content portfolio, hire top talent and accelerate its growing user base.
"The Chingari team has built a terrific product with great user retention and growth. ONMO gaming's short format challenges and Chingari's short-form videos complement each other well," remarked Krish Seshadri, chief executive officer, OnMobile.
Other investors who participated in this round include Republic Labs US, Astarc Ventures, White Star Capital, India Tv (Rajat Sharma), JPIN Venture Catalysts Ltd, ProfitBoard Ventures, Raghunandan G of Zolve (co-founder, Taxi4sure), and some family office funds from the UK.
"We couldn't have hoped for a better partner than OnMobile and Krish to help Chingari embody its vision and become a content super media app for Bharat, and help engage the Billion Indians. With our visions aligned, this partnership promises to be a winning collaboration," commented Sumit Ghosh, co-founder, and chief executive officer, Chingari.
Chingari that started off as a short-form video app, has now positioned itself as a content media super app for Bharat. Chingari not only offers short-form videos, but has carved its niche by also introducing Chingari Multiplex, and the first one in India to introduce Social Video Commerce. Now, With the strategic partnership of OnMobile, Chingari would also be introducing gaming within the app, the company shared.
"We are thrilled to have Krish join our board at Chingari. His vast experience on working with various products like Facebook, Zynga, and many others adds great value to the team and the platform," added Aditya Kothari, co-founder, and chief strategy officer, Chingari.
Earlier last year Chingari had raised $1.4 million from a series of Angels, including Jasminder Gulati, FJ Labs (Fabrice Grinda), Angelist, Utsav Somani's iSeed, Village Global, and Blume Founders Fund.
