India's ShareChat and MX Player agree to merge their short-video apps, Moj and MX TakaTak; source says the deal is worth $900M
Tiger Global-backed ShareChat and Times Internet-owned on-demand video streaming service MX Player have agreed to “strategically merge” their short video apps Moj and MX TakaTak …
Context & Ripple Effects
Times Internet paid ~$140M for a majority of MX Player in 2018, and ShareChat raised $502M at a $2.1B valuation in 2021 with its short-video app Moj claiming 120M MAU alongside its 160M-MAU social network. The merger folds those two competing short-video bets — Moj and MX TakaTak — into a single Mohalla Tech property at a reported $900M.
The surrounding arc is what gives the deal its meaning: Times Group went on to join Google and Temasek in Mohalla Tech's ~$300M round at ~$5B three months later, and by 2024 Amazon had acquired MX Player's key assets at a reported valuation under $100M — below what Times Internet paid in 2018. The merger was the first step in unwinding India's crowded short-video field, not the peak of it.
First-order effects
- Moj and MX TakaTak's overlapping user bases, engineering teams, and ad inventory consolidate under Mohalla Tech, ending a two-app race for the same Indian short-video audience; Times Internet swaps a standalone app for a stake in the combined entity.
Second-order effects
- The equity swap positioned Times Internet to invest alongside Google and Temasek in Mohalla Tech's ~$300M round at ~$5B, aligning the media group with the merged platform rather than funding a competitor to it.
Third-order effects
- The pattern's endpoint is visible in the corpus: Amazon's 2024 purchase of MX Player's key assets at under $100M — below Times Internet's 2018 price — suggests the merger consolidated users but not asset value, and that India's local video apps tend to exit to global platforms rather than sustain independent scale.
The trend: India's short-video and streaming assets are consolidating from a crowded field of VC- and media-backed apps into fewer hands, with global platforms emerging as the eventual owners.