Google is in talks with ShareChat for investing in the Bengaluru-based social media firm, two people familiar with the matter told ET.
ShareChat is looking to raise $150-200 million and is holding discussions with investors and technology companies, as it prepares to battle it out with over a dozen rivals to fill the gap left by banned Chinese apps, including TikTok and Helo. ShareChat owns a regional language social media platform that competed with ByteDance's recently banned Helo and a new short-video app Moj, which was released soon after TikTok's exit from the market.

(Economic Times, August 17)

Tarun Pathak's key takeaways:

ShareChat is a perfect fit to Google’s strategy of increasing exposure to India’s rising digital adoption.
Beyond growing ad revenue, a deal could provide richer local insight around the next half billion first-time internet users, helping to shore up its domestic social networking ambitions over the long term.
We’re already seeing a close partnership between the two, with ShareChat’s recent infrastructure migration to Google Cloud.

Google in Talks With ShareChat as Latter Scouts for $150-200 Million

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