Chinese social network startup Chinari plans to raise funds in the next round of funding, according to people familiar with the matter.
According to two individuals familiar with the situation, Tech4Billion Media is expected to raise $200 million at a $1 billion valuation, catapulting the operator of video-sharing site Chingari into India’s fast-growing league of so-called startup unicorns.
According to the sources, Chingari will raise the new cash in its Series B round of fundraising, and the company’s solid valuation will be aided by the successful listing of its social token GARI on numerous cryptocurrency platforms last month.
According to the persons quoted above, who requested anonymity, the business has already secured promises of at least $100 million. Unicorns are startups with a market capitalization of at least $1 billion.
According to the persons quoted above, the platform, which claims to be one of India’s fastest-growing short-video applications, is in negotiations with various local and international venture capital companies and crypto-focused funds for funding. They anticipate that the investment round will be completed in around two months.
The previous year saw an increase in financing and valuations in India’s startup ecosystem, with 42 businesses becoming unicorns. The trend continued in the first quarter of 2022, with 14 firms becoming unicorns, including DealShare, Polygon, and Games 24×7.
Chingari secured an extra $15 million in an expanded Series A round sponsored by Republic Capital in January. The business raised 95 crore in its Series A investment led by OnMobile Global in April 2021.
Chingari, founded in November 2018 by Sumit Ghosh, Deepak Salvi, Aditya Kothari, and Biswatma Nayak, allows users to download and publish short movies as well as purchase for products within the app.
Chingari’s platform has over 130 million users in India and displays videos in more than 15 languages. The Chingari app offers real-time video commerce, which means that every video submitted to the site is processed frame by frame, and all recognised items are matched against Amazon’s live library. This enables users to shop on the platform. Furthermore, Chingari provides services such as Chingari Multiplex and Chingari TV to increase the entertainment factor even further.
However, Chingari’s decision to launch India’s first crypto-token, GARI, at a time when interest in web3 firms is high, is garnering a lot of attention to the startup. The $GARI token is created on the Solana blockchain network, an emerging cryptocurrency that is frequently viewed as a rival to Ethereum.
Last November, GARI raised $40 million in the first 24 hours of its live sale on the Republic platform. Republic is a crowd-equity platform that provides investments in startups, real estate, gaming, and cryptocurrency.
A month earlier, the crypto-token had received $19 million from 30 venture funds and other investors. A token round was used to raise the cash. A token round is when investors participate in a venture by purchasing the project’s token, which in this case is $GARI. GARI is now listed on some of the world’s most prominent centralised exchanges, including CoinDCX, HUObi, and MEXC Global. GARI is now accessible on the Chingari app, and producers may begin earning $GARI Social Tokens for their films.
Web3 and cryptocurrency transactions witnessed a significant increase in investor interest last year and are anticipated to continue this year, especially given the government’s decision on the legality of digital assets. Several new business models arose in this arena, including decentralised finance (DeFi), or an open-source movement; cryptocurrencies; and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in early-stage partnerships.
