India’s TikTok Rival Chingari Raises $19M From Alameda, Kraken and Galaxy Digital

Chingari will use the funds to develop its popular short video platform and launch its social token on the Solana blockchain.

Oct 8, 2021 at 1:33 p.m. UTC

Updated May 11, 2023 at 4:11 p.m. UTC

Sumit Ghosh, co-founder of Chingari Media Pvt, poses for a photograph in Bangaluru, India, on Saturday, July 11, 2020. In late June, when India banned 59 Chinese apps, including global sensation TikTok, the short-video platform stopped working for its 200 million local users. Bangalore-based Chingari, had 3.5 million users that day, says it has now crossed 17.5 million. Photographer: Samyukta Lakshmi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

India’s short-video sharing platform Chingari has raised $19 million for its token round from prominent crypto investors, including Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, Kraken, Galaxy Digital, Solana Capital and Republic Crypto.

Founded in 2018, Chingari is a well-known video app that has grown rapidly after popular social media platform TikTok was banned in India in June 2020. Chingari now has 30 million monthly active users and 78 million downloads, according to the company.
The funds will be used to continue the development of the Chingari platform and to launch the $GARI social token on the Solana blockchain.
The token is a “critical piece of the platform” that will enable creators to set up their own e-commerce spaces that include physical merchandise, create non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and enable fans to fund their favorite artists, the company said.
“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,” Chingari CEO Sumit Ghosh said in a statement.
Other notable investors in the funding round include BlackPine, NGC Ventures, CoinFund, LD Capital, Borderless Capital, AU21 Capital, Cultur3 Capital, Long Term Ventures, Afton Capital and CSP DAO.

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