A Troubling Mystery Unfolds! ₹1,898 Crore Loss for ShareChat’s Parent Mohalla Tech in FY24

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu): Mohalla Tech, the parent company of social media platform ShareChat, reported a consolidated loss of Rs 1,898 crore in FY24, from Rs 5,143 crore in FY23. In FY24, the company’s adjusted EBITDA loss was Rs 793 crore. Earlier, it was Rs 2,400 crore in FY23, according to its financials.

Mohalla Tech, which also owns short-form video app Moj, reported 50 per cent decline in expenses at Rs 1,540 crore in the last financial year. It was Rs 3,119 crore in FY23. According to a report in Entrackr, while calculating the total expenses of the company, all non-cash components including foreign exchange (FX) losses, depreciation and ESOP expenses, were excluded. The company said in a statement that its revenue increased by 33 per cent on annual basis to Rs 718 crore in FY 24, which was Rs 540 crore in FY 23.

The share of live-streaming in income was 56 per cent in FY24, increased by 41.4 per cent on annual basis to Rs 403 crore. The remaining income came from advertising. In FY24, it went up 23.5 per cent on annual basis to Rs 315 crore. Apart from this, the company received income of Rs 29 crore in FY24 from interest and gain on financial assets. If this non-operating income is also included, the company's total income stood at Rs 747 crore last fiscal.

Employee benefits cost declined by 17 per cent to Rs 580 crore in FY24. This included ESOP (non-cash) of Rs 126 crore. ShareChat claims to have over 325 million monthly active users (MAUs) across all its platforms. The short-form video app Moj has a monthly active user base of around 160 million.

According to reports, "ShareChat has so far raised $1.3 billion from investors. It is backed by companies such as Temasek Holdings, Google, Twitter, The Times Group, Tiger Global, Snap, Lightspeed and Elevation Capital. The valuation of the company had come down from $5 billion to $2 billion at the time of fund raising in June 2022."