ShareChat Becomes Cash-Flow Positive, Targets IPO in 2 Years: CEO Ankush Sachdeva
Having weathered two tough years of high cash burn and senior-level exits, Google and Temasek-funded Mohalla Tech, the holding company of ShareChat and Moj, is now targeting sustainable growth and IPO preparation, Co-Founder and CEO Ankush Sachdeva stated in an interview with Moneycontrol recently.
Sachdeva revealed that the company has transitioned from burning nearly $30 million a month in late 2022 to becoming cash flow positive as of February 2025, a first in the company’s 10-year history. “We’ve been in survival mode for the last two years, but are now getting back into the build mode”, he said, highlighting a significant pivot in ShareChat's business strategy.
Established in 2015 by Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Farid Ahsan, ShareChat had a tough time in recent years, facing monetisation challenges, layoffs, and the exit of Co-Founders Singh and Ahsan, who quit in October 2023 to start a robotics startup.
Despite all these shortcomings, Mohalla Tech clocked Rs 718.1 crore in FY24 revenue, 30% of which is more than Rs 552.7 crore it made in FY23, Tracxn stated. Concurrently, the firm effectively narrowed down losses by 63%, from Rs 5,144.3 crore in FY23 to Rs 1,898.9 crore in FY24.
We have now become cash flow positive. So we're trying to steady the ship and get to sustainable revenue growth. That's a prerequisite for being a healthy company… We are looking to have an IPO in the next two years", Sachdeva said.
ShareChat's historical growth was supported by plenty of venture capital earlier. The company has more recently taken a more conservative approach, though. "We're no longer spending on VC capital. We're spending on our own revenues, which we see doubling in the next three years", he said. The company is not currently proactively looking for new capital, but it is open to raising capital if it fits into broader strategic opportunities, Sachdeva said.
In March 2024, Mohalla Tech also raised $49 million in venture debt from its existing investors such as Temasek, Tiger Global, Lightspeed, Google, Tencent, and others. Media reports indicated that this round valued the company at $1.5 billion, a dramatic decline from its peak valuation of $5 billion in 2022.
So far, the company has raised approximately $1.2 billion in a combination of debt and equity, supported by key investors including Snap Inc., Twitter (now known as X), Elevation Capital, India Quotient, and the Mirae-Naver Asia Growth Fund.
ShareChat and Moj now plan to consolidate their market footprint with renewed emphasis on business efficiency and growth in revenues, marking a new chapter in their growth.
