In 2014, Ankush Sachdeva and his co-founders spotted something odd: people were sharing their phone numbers in public forums to be added to WhatsApp groups that circulated jokes, memes, devotional songs, and more—in regional languages. Thus, was born ShareChat, a social media platform built for India’s non-English-speakers.

Soon, ShareChat and video-sharing platform Moj—its two products—had more than 200 million monthly active users and an annual revenue of ₹800 crore. The company turned cash flow positive in February 2024, a rare milestone in India’s social media landscape.

ShareChat came up with its own playbook, as Western models didn’t always work to build for Bharat. Today, it pays around ₹300 crore annually to creators, most of them regional.

As the company eyes an IPO in 18 months, Sachdeva is betting big on the next wave of content creation—one that’s powered by one-person creators using Generative AI. “We’re talking about one-person unicorns,” he says.