TikTok Left a Hole in India’s Net—Both Meta and Google Want to Fill It

TikTok’s eviction from India in 2020 left a gaping gap in the nation’s fast-growing short-video market—one which Instagram and a number of homegrown rivals are combating to fill. Many of those new Indian contenders are being cultivated by one other American tech behemoth: Instagram-parent Meta ’s rival Google.

Last week, Google participated in a $255 million funding spherical that valued Mohalla Tech—mother or father of native language social-media platform ShareChat and short-video app Moj—at $5 billion. Moj is certainly one of India’s largest short-video platforms. Mohalla additionally counts Temasek and Tiger Global as buyers.