JPIN Venture Catalysts Ltd (JPIN VCATS), India’s specialist co-investor network has partnered with a cohort of investment leaders as part of a USD13 million raise for Chingari, a global innovator in mobile entertainment.
The social media start-up serves as India’s homegrown short-form video app; progressing onwards from the raise, the company is set to scale as a steady disruptor to its Chinese equivalent, TikTok. Indicative to both the investor appetite for video content social media platforms, and the raise capacity of its backers, JPIN VCATS – and some large UK family offices from their network – have committed USD1 million towards the raise, oversubscribing on this round to the amount of USD1.2 million.
The investment will allow Chingari to accelerate its growth from 56 million users to over 100 million users. JPIN VCATS’ investment alongside other lead investor OnMobile, will integrate and distribute the mobile entertainment specialist’s gaming platform on the Chingari app, and collaborate on other product integrations. Chingari will use the funds to enhance its content portfolio, hire top talent and accelerate its growing user base to over 100 million subscribers.
Other investors who participated in this round include Republic Labs US, Astarc Ventures, White Star Capital, India Tv (Rajat Sharma), ProfitBoard Ventures, Raghunandan G of Zolve (Co-Founder of Taxi4sure) and some large family office funds from the UK from the JPIN VCATS network. Earlier last year Chingari had raised USD1.4 million from a series of sngels, including Jasminder Gulati, FJ Labs (Fabrice Grinda), Angelist, Utsav Somani’s iSeed, Village Global, and Blume Founders Fund.
Nayan Gala, Co-founder JPIN VCATS, comments: “Chingari has rock solid-founders, an incredible advisory board and are looking to dominate the video content space with several features that competitors have been trying to build for a while. Whereas Chingari is in advanced stages to execute, China based apps are being banned in India, Chingari within six months gaining 56 million users is an incredible story. Our phone has been ringing with potential investors who want to invest into this.”
Sumit Ghosh, CEO of Chingari, says: “We are on a very fast trajectory with a vision to change how e-commerce is done. We are delighted to have JPIN VCATS as partners who have been very passionate and supported and delivered better than expected, with a great composition of strategic investors who will most certainly help us grow even faster.”
Gaurav Singh, Co-founder of JPIN VCATS, says: “Chingari means Spark and the energy and passion these guys demonstrate and the virality at which the platform is growing, it’s amazing. Every time we check, they’ve added a few million users. It on its own is a major appeal and has room to grow to crazy levels, especially as India has over 627 million internet users, with 18 per cent year on year growth. It is a testament of how UK investors are investing into Indian start-ups with JPIN VCATS”.
