Exclusive | ShareChat eyes IPO in 12-18 months, valuation to be market-driven

Homegrown social media platform ShareChat is preparing to go public within the next 12-18 months, its Co-Founder and CEO Ankush Sachdeva told CNBC-TV18 in an exclusive interaction.

The company, which was last valued at around $1.5 billion after a correction from its $5-billion peak in 2022, said valuations will ultimately be discovered closer to the IPO.

"We've achieved key milestones including cash flow positivity and EBITDA breakeven, and now have better predictability in the business. The next 12-18 months is what we are aiming for," Sachdeva said, outlining the listing timeline.

The company has been cash flow-positive for the last nine months and expects FY26 revenue to come in at around ₹1,000 crore, implying 38% YoY growth. At the same time, EBITDA losses are set to shrink sharply to below ₹200 crore from about ₹800 crore in FY25.

Sachdeva added that April 2026 is likely to mark the company's first month of being EBITDA-positive, PAT-positive and cash flow-positive simultaneously.

On valuations, Sachdeva acknowledged the sharp correction from peak levels, but emphasised that the company remains focused on execution rather than short-term market benchmarks.

He said ShareChat continues to grow its user base, scale revenues and diversify monetisation beyond advertising, including through microtransactions and subscriptions.

Backed by investors such as Google, Temasek and Lightspeed Venture Partners, the company has raised about $1.2 billion to date. However, with cash flow now turning positive, Sachdeva said the company effectively has "perpetual runway" and is no longer reliant on external funding ahead of its IPO.

Founded in 2015, ShareChat emerged as an early mover in India's vernacular content space, targeting users beyond metro cities. The platform saw a major inflection point following the TikTok ban in India, when it launched short-video app Moj within 30 hours to capture the sudden vacuum in the market.

Today, ShareChat and Moj together have around 200 million monthly active users, even as competition from global platforms remains intense.

The company has also undergone a major reset over the past two years, moving from a high cash-burn phase, where annual losses exceeded ₹1,000 crore, to a more disciplined cost structure. A key lever in this transition was reducing infrastructure costs, including cloud and server expenses, which helped improve unit economics.

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With profitability now within reach and growth stabilising, ShareChat is shifting from what Sachdeva describes as a "survival mode" to a "build mode," focusing on long-term, sustainable expansion as it prepares for the public markets.

On the regulatory front, he said the company views evolving norms not as a hurdle but as a necessary framework to build a safer platform, particularly given its strong user base in tier 2 and tier 3 markets with diverse cultural sensitivities.