Sharechat on Monday announced that it has acquired Bengaluru-based Circle Internet for an undisclosed amount. Circle Internet was launched in 2018 by Uchit Kumar, Shashank Shekhar and Gaurav Agarwal. Circle Internet is backed by SAIF Partners and Venture Highway.
Circle Internet provides information which is relevant locally to Indian language users across tier – II and tier – III cities and also has a presence in more than 120 districts across Rajasthan, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.
Over two million hyperlocal content pieces have been created on the platform since inception, contributed by both users and verified creators. ShareChat has over 130 million monthly active users and is available in 15 Indic languages.
With the acquisition of Circle’s business, the existing 15-member team has joined ShareChat and will be contributing towards building a language-first, community-driven user generated hyperlocal content ecosystem. The platform also brings a network of over 1,000 volunteers to contribute towards the hyperlocal content ecosystem.
Circle Internet CEO and Co-founder Shashank Shekhar who headed content operations at the Bengaluru-based social media company before starting Circle, will head the overall content strategy for ShareChat in his latest innings said, “Circle was started with a vision to provide trustworthy locally relevant information to Indian language internet users. The platform evolved as an invisible thread to bridge the gaps in content being made available to non-English speaking internet users, through relevant and contextual hyperlocal content.”
“With the help of ShareChat’s wide reach, expertise in language-first approach, powerful content serving algorithms, Circle will soon be reaching out to the majority of the districts across India.” added Shashank.
“ShareChat is growing faster than the industry, and we are investing in our capabilities to serve diverse content needs of the new users that we add to the platform,” ShareChat Vice President, Corporate Development and Strategic Finance, Manohar Charan said. This acquisition will help the homegrown social media app strengthen hyper-local content on its platform.