Mumbai-based early-stage investment firm India Quotient is looking to make a partial exit in Bengaluru-based vernacular social networking startup Sharechat.
The transaction is expected to be worth around ₹50 crores, giving the investment firm a healthy return of 25-30 time on its investment, as reported by Economic Times. India Quotient still holds around 5% stake in Sharechat, valued at over ₹165 crores.
Around 1-2% of Sharechat’s stake is picked up by China-based Hillhouse Capital, while the details of the deal remain undisclosed.
The news comes soon after Sharechat raised ₹720 crores in a fresh funding round led by existing investor Shunwei Capital, along with new investors including, Hong Kong-based Morningside Ventures and Jesmond Holdings, an affiliate of Russian billionaire Yuri Milner‘s DST Global, as reported last month.
The last funding round valued the Indian social networking startup at around ₹1,332 crores, increasing the valuation seven times from its previous valuation of ₹431 crores, post series B round.
“Nobody believed that Indian entrepreneurs can build a social media company, let alone freshers without any pedigree straight out of college. But they have been able to build a property which is competing with Facebook and Twitter,” said India Quotient’s founding partner Anand Lunia, confirming the partial exit.
ShareChat was founded by three IIT-Kanpur alumni, Farid Ahsan, Bhanu Singh, and Ankush Sachdeva in 2015. It provides a vernacular social networking platform for users to share and discover images, songs, videos, and other content in their own language.
Other players in the vernacular domain competing with ShareChat include Roposo, Clip App, Vokal, Dailyhunt, and Samosa Labs, among others.
With this exit, India Quotient has returned more than half of its second fund which counted SIDBI’s fund of funds as its largest backer.
India Quotient was founded by two IIM graduates Anand Lunia and Madhukar Sinha in 2012. The firm invests in Indian startups working at the intersection of smartphones, big data, and design in changing the lives of the Indian consumers.
So far the investment firm has invested in more than 40 Indian startups including, Coolberg, Upwards, WealthTrust, and Lokal, among many others.
Here is a list of top 10 India Quotient investments in the country.