Inside ShareChat’s Mixed FY26
ShareChat parent Mohalla Tech delivered some hits and some misses in FY26. While the homegrown social media giant crossed the ₹1,000 Cr revenue mark and found a new growth engine in microdramas, what played the spoilsport were losses and surging expenses.
Here is a quick look at Mohalla Tech’s FY26 numbers:
- Operating revenue zoomed 40.4% YoY to ₹1,016.3 Cr
- Net loss widened 78.5% YoY to ₹1,978.4 Cr
- Total expenses surged 65.6% YoY to ₹3,083 Cr
Loss Widens: Mohalla Tech’s FY26 losses were largely driven by rising expenses. Employee benefit costs more than doubled YoY in the fiscal under review, while forex losses also surged following Rupee’s depreciation. Meanwhile, marketing and user acquisition spending also jumped nearly 8X YoY as Mohalla Tech invested aggressively in growth.
The Microdrama Pivot: The launch of QuickTV opened a crucial new revenue stream and generated nearly a third of Mohalla Tech’s total income in FY26. This pivot helped buffer against advertising headwinds in the aftermath of the ban on real-money gaming last year. But the unit economics of microdramas remained challenging, forcing the platform to rely heavily on ad-supported models to mint revenues.
The EBITDA Turnaround: Despite the widening losses, Mohalla Tech’s operating performance showed improvement. The startup halved its FY26 EBITDA loss YoY to ₹91 Cr, suggesting that its core business is inching closer to profitability. The management also claimed that the startup posted its first EBITDA-positive quarter in Q1 FY27 due to better monetisation across subscriptions, livestreaming and advertising.
The FY27 Test: Mohalla Tech is now targeting an EBITDA profit of ₹25 Cr in FY27, and claims to have already reported around ₹740 Cr in revenue in H1 FY27. The management now expects advertising to rebound strongly, with AVOD top line projected to cross ₹350 Cr in the ongoing fiscal. The startup remains little optimistic about subscriptions, believing most Indian users will not pay for microdramas and that paying users will remain below 100 Mn even as the market matures.
As ShareChat taps into microdramas to finally build a durable business, here is all about how parent Mohalla Tech fared on the financial front in FY26…
From The Editor’s Desk
✈️ MakeMyTrip All Set For IPO
- The Nasdaq-listed online travel aggregator’s India arm has received SEBI’s approval to launch its IPO in the country. This comes four months after MMT filed its draft IPO papers with SEBI in July this year.
- The issue is expected to consist entirely of an offer for sale component worth $1 Bn, with no fresh issue of shares. MMT India will continue to remain a subsidiary of the US-listed entity following the IPO.
- MakeMyTrip listed on the Nasdaq in 2010 due to the maturity of the US tech ecosystem. However, since then, the Indian new-age tech landscape has grown to house over 70 listed startups, which have raised billions of dollars from their respective IPOs.
🔍 Casualties At Tata’s iPhone Factory
- Three workers died of asphyxiation during maintenance work at Tata’s iPhone component manufacturing unit in Tamil Nadu’s Hosur. The incident took place inside a nano-filtration feed tank, operated by US-based Ecolab’s subsidiary Nalco Water.
- While the preliminary probe suggests toxic smoke inhalation, sources added that there were no proper safety measures in place.
- Tata Electronics is now expected to face an investigation by a joint team of officials from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and the state’s Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health.
🚉 InMobi’s New Marketing Move
- The IPO-bound adtech unicorn has paid ₹65 Cr (excluding GST) to secure the naming rights for Bengaluru’s Ibbaluru metro station for a period of 30 years. With this, the station will now be called InMobi Ibbaluru Metro Station.
- The sum will go towards Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Ltd’s non-fare revenue. The BMRCL also expects the partnership to encourage higher corporate participation in the city’s public transport ecosystem.
- The deal comes as InMobi’s IPO continues to be in limbo. Last heard, the startup was eyeing a 2025 IPO at a valuation of around $10 Bn. While the unicorn has roped in four bankers to helm its public issue, InMobi is yet to file its DRHP.
🤖 Sarvam Ropes In Ex-Google Exec
- The AI unicorn Sarvam has appointed former Google Cloud India MD Sashikumar Sreedharan as its new president and chief business officer. He will also join the startup’s board of directors.
- With more than 35 years of experience under his belt, Sreedharan has previously worked at big tech giants like Google India, Microsoft India and IBM. He previously also served at Wipro, Happiest Mind Technologies, among others.
- His appointment comes as Sarvam looks to build a larger enterprise AI business and strengthen its client roster. Founded in 2023, Sarvam develops foundational AI models, compute infrastructure and enterprise AI tools. It has raised $380 Mn to date.
💰 Google Backs Froncort.AI
- The healthtech startup has raised $2.3 Mn from the big tech giant’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, to scale its AI-powered disease surveillance and detection platform. The support also includes $200K in Google Cloud credits and technical expertise.
- Founded in 2024, Froncort leverages AI, satellite imagery and health data to identify areas with higher prevalence of infectious diseases like tuberculosis. It also guides health workers with dedicated routes to enable targeted screenings.
- The funding comes as the AI sector is attracting a growing share of investor capital, driven by novel solutions, enterprise AI use cases and a thriving local talent base. As per Inc42 data, AI funding in India grew 265% YoY to $438 Mn in Q3 2026.
📈 Matrimony’s Q2 Show
- The listed matchmaking platform’s consolidated net profit skyrocketed 165.4% YoY to ₹20.7 Cr in Q2 FY27. This came on the back of expanding margins, a tighter leash on expenses and operating revenue rising 17.6% YoY to ₹134.8 Cr.
- On the operational front, Matrimony added 3.02 Lakh paid subscribers to its kitty in Q2 FY27, up 27% YoY. The matchmaking vertical also saw its reported billings jump nearly 11% YoY to ₹130 Cr in the quarter under review.
- The listed company also said that its board approved the acquisition of an additional 50% stake in astrology-based matchmaking platform, Astro-Vision, for ₹8 Cr. Post the deal, Matrimony’s stake in the startup will rise to 76.9%.
Inc42 Markets
Inc42 Startup Spotlight
Legacy Equipment Enters The Unmanned Era
Automation often means buying expensive new robots and redesigning operations around them. Hyderabad-based TensrAI is trying to flip this model by retrofitting existing industrial equipment with autonomous capabilities.
Built For Automation: Founded in 2022, TensrAI is building a unified autonomy platform for industrial and commercial robots, vehicles and machines. Its stack combines camera-first navigation, AI-based localisation, vision-language-model reasoning and autonomous mobility. It is also developing a mobile manipulator for handling materials and performing other tasks.
A Retrofit-First Stack: The startup’s AI stack is designed to help equipment perceive surroundings, interpret instructions, navigate changing spaces and perform work with limited human intervention. TensrAI initially plans to target factories, warehouses, airports, hospitals, malls and commercial campuses.
The Road Ahead: TensrAI’s retrofit approach is intended to reduce the cost and complexity of adopting robotics. But the startup will have to prove that its autonomy stack can work reliably across machines, environments and real-world tasks. With India’s robotics market projected to become a $4.6 Bn opportunity by 2030, can TensrAI make retrofitting autonomy easy for Indian factories?
Infographic Of The Day
From spacetech to semiconductors, Indian VC firms are backing startups building some of India’s most ambitious technologies. Here is a closer look at where the money is going and what India’s next wave of deeptech innovation looks like…
