ShareChat scouts for start-ups in AI, ML space to expand product portfolio

Acquires memes platform Memer for an undisclosed amount

Looking to expand inorganically, social media start-up ShareChat has acquired meme platform Memer for an undisclosed amount. With the acquisition, the eight-member team at Memer has joined ShareChat, which will be contributing towards making the Bengaluru-based portal a more robust platform with a stronger regional connect.

The company is actively looking to partner with more such start-ups in areas such as AI, ML, computer vision, online gaming, live streaming and other such technologies.

“We are looking for inorganic opportunities to complement our organic efforts and power the growth engine. We are on active lookout for startups that complement our product capabilities and share the vision of serving diverse content and social needs of Indian masses. Memer happens to be the first step towards this approach,” said Manohar Charan, VP, Corporate Development and Strategic Finance, ShareChat. 

Charan said the company is already in discussions to acquire a few other start-ups that will help the company diversy its product features. 

With the Memer acquisition, its product suite will be integrated with Twitter-backed ShareChat. “We were looking for a larger player who shares our passion for regional India, to take our innovation to the next level. We could not think of anyone better than ShareChat, the only company to have unlocked the magic of regional language,” said Amit Singh, co-founder and CEO, Memer.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, ShareChat has seen a 15 per cent increase in daily average users and rise in the content shared on topics like news and health. It has hired multiple third-party fact-checkers reviewing content across 13 languages in order to weed out fake news.