Chingari, an Indian short-video sharing company, is working on its own blockchain network and social coin, “What Axie Infinity did for gaming, we want to do for social media,” Chingari co-founder and CEO Sumit Ghosh says.
Chingari revealed on Friday that it has raised $19 million in funding to build its mainnet and hold a token sale for its Solana-based GARI token in November.
The token sale is set for Nov. 2, according to Chingari co-founder and CEO Sumit Ghosh, with the mainnet launch and application integration due by the end of the month.
Over 30 venture funds and individual investors, including Sam Bankman-Alameda Fried’s Research, Solana Capital, and Kraken crypto exchange, participated in the fresh round, which was co-led by significant blockchain investors such as Republic Crypto and Mike Novogratz’s investment firm, Galaxy Digital.
The $19 million was raised using a GARI token raise in one seed round and one private round, according to Ghosh. Chingari previously raised $1.3 million in 2020 and $13 million in April 2021 in two separate stock deals.
Chingari’s blockchain technology, according to Ghosh, will allow users to earn tokens for generating or watching content. “We want to achieve for social media what Axie Infinity has done for gaming,” he stated.
“The vision of a large number of people making a tiny amount of money and uplifting themselves by engaging in a social platform is quite compelling, and Chingari wants to make this vision a reality,” the CEO continued.
Since TikTok was banned in India early this year, a number of companies, like Chingari, have tried to fill the hole in the subcontinent for short video-sharing apps. Chingari claims that in the six months following the ban, its user base expanded from 100,000 to 50 million.
Chinese social media company TikTok announced its first step into the nonfungible token sector in late September, indicating that social media firms are progressively going into the crypto industry. Twitter formerly allowed users to tip each other using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC).
