Solana-Based Chingari Raises $19 Million from 30 VCs

As TikTok is banned in India by government authorities, many early-stage decentralized applications are laser-focused on filling this massive vacuum.

$19 million raised by Chingari; Alameda Research on Board

According to a statement released by the team of the Chingari video sharing application, it has successfully closed a strategic funding round.

PROUD MOMENT: Chingari wins the award for ‘The Most Popular Social Media App’ at the coveted ‘Times Business Awards 2021’. A prestigious honour that motivates our onward journey to continue surprising users with the finest in entertainment, technology & innovation.?@sumitgh85 pic.twitter.com/Ufcwa1tf4X

— Chingari Official Page (@Chingari_IN) September 27, 2021

A net sum of $19 million was secured by a clutch of high-profile investors. The likes of Republic Crypto, Galaxy Digital, Alameda Research, Solana Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Kraken Ventures, Blackpine, NGC, Coinfund, LD Capital, 11-11 Ventures, AU21, Cultur3 Capital, Long Term Ventures, Afton Capital and CSP DAO took part in Chingari's fundraising.

This announcement follows the exponential growth of Chingari's user base. In the last six months, this metric surpassed the 80-million-user milestone. Recently, the platform won the "App Innovation Challenge" by the government of India.

Based in India's Silicon Valley, Bangalore, Chingari has one of the best metrics among regional social media platforms in terms of engagement time, videos watched, DAUs and MAUs.

Sumit Ghosh, CEO of Chingari, highlighted that the creator-centric model is among the top "killing features" for his app:

The future of a platform lies in its creators. On one side, we have an immense talent pool that needs to be explored, and rewarded with an ethical amount of monetization. On the other side, while crypto experiences a rapid expansion in India, $GARI is poised to make it mainstream. We are infusing the two, through robust strategies and incorporation of the most-promising industry advances.

GARI tokensale on Solana is in the cards

Chingari will also pioneer the integration of the Web3 instrument (crypto token) to Web2 infrastructure. To do so, it is going to organize a tokensale on Solana (SOL) to distribute its GARI token among crypto enthusiasts.

GARI will act as an instrument of monetization for content creators as well as for community development and management.

Chingari's near-term roadmap includes beta testing of the Chingari Integration module and testing blockchain instruments alongside the release of GARI.

Solana (SOL) blockchain was chosen as Chingari's first blockchain platform as it boasts high performance and charges transactions with negligible fees.