ShareChat Acquires Short-Video Platform MX TakaTak

One of the biggest homegrown platforms of India Mohalla Tech announced the acquisition of MX TakaTak, an online short video-making platform. MX TakaTak is acquired by MX Media, which is part of Times Internet and comes under Times Group. 

One of the sources said that their company, the owner of social media apps ShareChat and Moj will be merging MX TakaTak with Moj for nearly about $600 million (around Rs 4,500 crore). Thus making them one of the vast platforms for creating online short videos. Mohalla Tech in the year 2021, has raised around $913 million, at a valuation of $3.7 billion and this acquisition will provide more benefits thus bolstering the business. 

Although Moj and ShareChat together have a very strong database of users, around 340 million while MX TakaTak has around 150 million users monthly, by acquiring this app Mohalla Tech will flourish more. One of the sources told IANS, “this will further bolster ShareChat’s short-video market share through the platform Moj.” The deal has been done in a way that all that shareholders of MX player and MX TakaTak will become the strategic stakeholders in Mohalla Tech, the parent company of ShareChat. Also, both the firms in their joint statement said,

“This strategic partnership will enable both MX Media and ShareChat to further benefit from the synergies between long-form and short-form, at a significantly larger scale, in an accelerated manner.” 

Karan Bedi the chief executive of MX player said,

“I am excited to announce the strategic merger of India’s two most popular social media platforms. MX has always strived to build superior world-class products, and TakaTak is no exception.” 

While Ankush Sachdeva, co-founder, and chief executive of ShareChat, in a statement, 

“We at Mohalla Tech are building India’s largest AI-powered content ecosystem which has been on an unprecedented growth trajectory. He also added, “MX TakaTak is a popular platform and this merger further solidifies our position in the short video ecosystem. With this development, we aim to build the largest original content platform on Moj along with the largest community of users across India and reach over 300 million MAUs by the end of 2022.”

Started in the year 2015, Mohalla Tech is one of India’s companies, which tried to build a huge platform for making short videos after TikTok. Their app Moj has around 4.5 billion views on a daily basis with a time span of 34 minutes every day. On the other hand, ShareChat is also positioned in a way that it also grabs users’ attention for up to 31 minutes every day. Ever since the start the company has seen growth and has almost 2000 employees working for them who all have joined hands together in making Moj, India’s number one platform for short videos. Now with acquiring MX TakaTak, they will definitely achieve that goal. 

Ankush Sachdeva when asked about the success of Moj and ShareChat said, 

“Both our products (Moj and ShareChat) have been leading the market with the highest monthly active user base, a very active creator set and amazing new partnerships to delight our community. This fresh funding will further strengthen our position,”

After the ban of TikTok in the year 2020, Moj came into the limelight, and an instant rise in the number of users. Although Tik Tok was reaching the point of having 200 million active users at that point a sudden ban of the app led to its downfall and gave a chance to homegrown companies to grab this amazing opportunity. As per the Redseer report from 2021 July, India’s short video space can become the second-biggest in one year after big companies like Facebook and Instagram. The platform is currently at 350-450 Mn MAU and may reach up to 650 Mn by 2025.