ShareChat and Vedantu
Feb 22
Good afternoon, Anmol here with the update today. Apologies for missing the long form newsletter yesterday, I was personally going through a bit of a writer's block and couldn't get myself to write about anything worthwhile/interesting. But today we have some reporting on an acquisition that didn't go through along with another EdTech acquisition.
http://tcrn.ch/3qNgUmz: Twitter explored buying ShareChat
➡️ TechCrunch came out with some interesting reporting a couple days ago that Twitter had recently held talks with ShareChat (where they are also an investor) to acquire the company and build a global TikTok competitor.
➡️ Twitter reportedly offered to buy ShareChat for $1.1B and commmited to invest an additional $900M according to TechCrunch's sources. This would not only give an exit to ShareChat's investors but would also give the company a war chest to not only compete with the local and global short video competitors but also expand Moj globally.
➡️ However, the talks did not materialize and ShareChat is resuming fundraising talks for a new financing round- these include Google and Snapchat (with whom the company recently collaborated with to integrate Snap's Camera Kit within Moj).
➡️ ShareChat's core application now has over 160M users and Moj has quickly grown to 80M users, while in India Twitter has not really been able to make inroads other than the larger cities and metros.
➡️ I also don't want to speculate too much on why this deal did not materialize but it might also be somewhat related to tussle between the Indian government and Twitter and ShareChat might not want to further complicate the company's future.
http://bit.ly/3sjws1P: Vedantu acquires doubt-solving platform Instasolv
➡️ And we have yet another EdTech giant acquiring a smaller edtech company- Vedantu has acquired the doubt solving platform Instasolv for an undisclosed amount. Vedantu has known about Instasolv for a while though, and previously led the company's Series A last year.
➡️ Just last week BYJUs also acquired Scholr, which is also in the doubt solving space. Currently the other major (and much larger) doubt solving company Doubtnut is still independent after a failed acquisition talk with BYJUs (the company later raised a Series B).
➡️ In the next couple of years we will know if doubt solving just becomes a feature in other larger EdTech plays or if an independent player like Doubtnut can continuing building and growing.
➡️ Now each of 3 large EdTech companies have big global investors on their cap tables: BYJUs (Tiger Global), Unacademy (Softbank), and Vedantu (Coatue) so I would assume the consolidation might continue if the newer companies fail to find investors at the Series B/C level.
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I would appreciate a feature where someone writes a few points on how.one builds products and markets doubtsolvr type of businesses. Will be helpful to newcomers like me.