iWorld
ShareChat’s parent company enters coveted unicorn club
KOLKATA: Mohalla Tech, the parent company of Moj and ShareChat, has become the latest entrant to the coveted unicorn club. The start-up has raised $502 million in its latest round of funding led by Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global, along with participation from Snap Inc, Twitter and India Quotient. With the new rounds of investment, its valuation has passed over $2.1 billion.
ShareChat CEO & co-founder Ankush Sachdeva said, “We are at an exciting inflection point in our journey, where we are going after a massive opportunity with the right team in place and the backing of long-term investors who have a deep conviction in our mission. With ShareChat & Moj, we are well-positioned to build the largest AI-powered content ecosystem in India.”
With this infusion of capital, the company is looking at aggressively growing its user base, strengthen our creator community, AI-powered recommendation engine and platform health, added Sachdeva.
Tiger Global partner Scott Shleifer said, “As internet penetration increases, ShareChat’s leading content creation platform is poised to expand dramatically by bridging into online purchases of goods and services. Additionally, Moj is well-positioned to seize the opportunity presented by the growth of short video in India. We are impressed with the team’s understanding of these rapidly evolving technologies and its ability to execute quickly, and we are excited to partner with them as they continue to build a great company.”
Lightspeed Venture Partners partner Ravi Mhatre said, "We are excited to witness the market-leading growth of Sharechat's short video product Moj over the past year, with adoption in metro cities, towns and villages across the length and breadth of India. Lightspeed globally is honoured to double down on its partnership with Sharechat to build one of India's iconic consumer Internet companies."
Lightspeed has backed the start-up in every Series A investment round since 2016.
Founded in 2015, Mohalla Tech has now successfully raised over $766 million across six fundraising rounds, enabling ShareChat to substantially grow and differentiate itself by delivering a unique, tech-led social media experience. Furthermore, Moj, which launched in July 2020, has already made huge strides towards leadership in the short video space. Moj and ShareChat together, with a 280 million-strong user community, envision building a cohesive AI-powered content ecosystem to address India’s growing digital needs.
iWorld
What SMS letters G, T, S and P mean and how they help spot scams
Small alphabet tags on messages reveal whether texts are government or ads.
MUMBAI: Sometimes the smallest letter in a message can be the biggest clue. In an age where smartphone users receive dozens of alerts every day, the tiny alphabet appearing at the end of many SMS messages can reveal whether a text is official, transactional, service related or simply promotional. Understanding these tags can help users quickly identify legitimate messages and stay alert to potential scams.
Under telecom regulations in India, SMS senders are required to categorise messages based on their purpose. As a result, many texts end with a single letter that indicates the type of communication being sent.
If an SMS ends with the letter G, it typically means the message has been sent by a government authority. These alerts may include information about public services, government schemes, safety advisories or emergency notifications such as natural disaster warnings.
A message ending with the letter T signals a transactional SMS. These are usually sent by banks, financial institutions or digital services to confirm activities such as payments, account updates or one time passwords (OTPs).
The letter S represents a service related message. These notifications commonly come from companies and online platforms providing updates about services or orders. For instance, e commerce platforms like Amazon or Flipkart often send delivery updates and order confirmations that end with the letter S.
Meanwhile, SMS messages ending with the letter P are promotional in nature. These texts are typically marketing communications sent by businesses advertising products, offers or services such as education programmes, fashion sales or loan schemes.
Understanding these simple tags can also help users stay cautious about fraudulent messages. Cybersecurity experts note that scam messages often do not follow these regulated formats and may arrive without any category letter at the end.
While the absence of a tag does not automatically mean a message is fraudulent, it can serve as an early warning sign encouraging users to verify the source before clicking links or sharing personal information.
For those who wish to reduce marketing texts altogether, telecom operators also provide Do Not Disturb (DND) options.
Users of Jio can activate DND through the MyJio app by navigating to the menu, selecting settings and enabling the DND option with preferred filters.
Similarly, subscribers of Airtel and Vi can enable the same feature through their respective mobile apps to block promotional messages.
In a digital world flooded with alerts and notifications, recognising what a single letter means could make the difference between a harmless update and a potential scam.
