Aptos Labs makes equity investment in Chingari

New Delhi: Short video app Chingari on Thursday said it has received an undisclosed amount of equity investment from blockchain company Aptos Labs.

Chingari was valued at around USD 500 million after raising USD 15 million (about Rs 112 crore) in an extended funding round led by Republic Capital in January 2022.

Without disclosing the financial details, Chingari said the fresh capital will be used for user growth, product development, ramping up engineering and global expansion.

California-based unicorn Aptos Labs, co-founded by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, has raised over USD 400 million till date. It is backed by investors such as Jump Crypto, Binance Labs, Dragonfly, PayPal Ventures and Coinbase Ventures.

"Aptos Labs comes with immense experience and we will leverage their expertise in building and scaling social media platforms. The partnership with Aptos Labs will pave the way for a strong foundation and case study in the Indian web3 ecosystem prior to expanding towards newer markets in the near future.

"This is a significant partnership that Chingari will forge to onboard the first one billion on-chain users," Chingari CEO and Co-Founder Sumit Ghosh said.

Chingari claims to have over 170 million users, comprising more than 5 million Daily Active Users (DAU) and 40 million Monthly Active Users (MAU).

The indigenous social media platform said that it will be launching its upgraded application on the Aptos Network by the second quarter of 2023.

"With its migration to Aptos, the short video app plans to further expand its user base. Presently, the app is available for millions of users in India, UAE, Indonesia, Turkey and the US. The firm plans to launch in more emerging and strategic markets in the near future," the statement said.

Chingari had revenue of USD 6.4 million in 2021-22.

"The team at Chingari has developed new ways for creators to interact with users, and we look forward to seeing their team continue to innovate," Aptos CEO and Co-Founder Mo Shaikh said.