The Tech Panda list of 5 social media startups of the month

The Tech Panda takes a look at six social media that are connecting users in many ways.

Social media comes in many ways now as well as many languages. It can be a gig platform where creators can earn while they connect. It can be a fan app that helps connect users with their favourite celebrities. It can even be a library where like minded users hobnob.

The Tech Panda takes a look at six social media that are connecting users in many ways.

SocialSwag

Socialswag is a new age platform that will enable consumers to connect with celebrities, influencers, bloggers and other inspirational individuals, through personal interactions and learning forums. By combining entertainment and learning, the app will enable interactions in multiple ways- masterclasses, live-chats, shout-outs, virtual selfies to name a few.

The startup is designed to focus on two aspects – education and entertainment. It has multiple verticals of its offering like masterclasses, live learning and personal shout outs, etc. The company runs on a subscription model giving unlimited access to the curated content on the platform.

Philosophy

According to a recent industry report, there are over 1,50,000 professional content creators in India who are able to monetize their services. The global content creators’ economy is estimated to be over $100 billion. Social Swag is rightly positioned to build its market leadership as the platform is backed by some of the most accomplished content creators and artists in India.

Growth Story

Started in 2020, Social Swag is building out a celebrity, influencer commerce platform and has been growing 40% m-o-m for the last 5 months and is poised to continue this trajectory as the online story in India continues to generate exciting outcomes.

Top celebrities and achievers like Lara Dutta, Bhavish Aggarwal, Abhinav Bindra, Akshay Kumar, Vicky Ratnani, Avinash Gowarikar are some of the most reputed names whose masterclasses are currently running on the platform. Social Swag aspires to build the biggest content platform which is made in India for the world.

MemeChat

MemeChat has a very strategic business model that connects brands and creators on a common platform, offering users the opportunity to create new memes. The company has earlier also launched India’s first exclusive NFT marketplace for memes called The Meme Club. It was also awarded second in the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Award, under the entertainment category amongst 6,940 entries from across the country.

Philosophy

Memes are one of the most important social currencies for individuals as well as brands. While memes are widely circulated, their creators hardly get any credit or compensation. The team at Memechat has built some of the largest meme pages in India and have contributed to viral trends since their teenage. It is only natural that the Memechat team is now enabling an alternate economy of meme creators to earn money through brand partnerships, NFTs and more.

Origin

MemeChat is an application that was launched in 2019. MemeChat has emerged as one of the most popular homegrown social media networking apps for Generation Z and millennials. The app gathered a dedicated following in just a year with more than 1.2 million monthly active users (a current user base of 12 million+ downloads) and over 30 million+ memes.

Growth Story

With over 5 million downloads and 20 million memes generated on the application, MemeChat will continue to strengthen the userbase for its newly launched The Meme Club – An NFT Marketplace (TMC), develop its networking app by building tools to easily discover & share memes and build a stronger recall value for MemeChat.

The startup has successfully built one of the largest meme communities in the country. Known to have partnered with the top Indian OTT platforms like ALT Balaji, Hotstar, and Amazon Prime, MC has successfully enabled its creators to benefit from its create and earn business model.

MemeChat has also secured more than US$ 1 million in its second round of funding, and led by Beenext, a Singapore-based venture capital firm and became the only Indian startup to be included in the ‘500 Startups, one of the most active global venture capital firms, a distinguished accelerator program for its 27th batch in 2020.

TOONSUTRA 

Toonsutra is a developer of a webtoon comics application. It aims at featuring a range of content for audiences across superhero, fantasy, romance, sci-fi, Bollywood, mythology, action, and more and is available for download on both iOS and Android devices. The application helps users to get access to new stories every day from creators and storytellers in and outside India in English, Hindi, and other regional languages.

Graphic India’s vast library of high-quality comics will now be available on TOONSUTRA.

“TOONSUTRA will become India’s new storytelling home for disruptive creators across the country to experiment, innovate and create powerful new webtoon comic stories and web3 collectibles and experiences,” Toonsutra, Founder, Sharad Devarajan commented.

Philosophy

“Webtoon platforms have become an explosive phenomenon across Asia with top webtoon apps cumulatively reaching over 70 million monthly users and over a 100 billion views a year. For the first time we want to make a webtoon app dedicated for Indians to spark a mobile comic and Web3 collectible revolution,” says Devarajan.

Origin

The new startup was incubated at Graphic India, the country’s highest quality comic book producer and the creators of hit animated shows like Baahubali: The Lost Legends; Chakra The Invincible; and The Legend of Hanuman. Graphic India’s short form video formatted Audio Comics and Motion Comics have already broken over 200 million cumulative views across third party platforms in India, proving the growing demand for digital comics in the market.

Growth Story

TOONSUTRA is building India’s first ‘Webtoons meets Web3’ platform with a mission to become India’s new storytelling home for disruptive creators across the country to experiment, innovate and create engaging webtoon comic stories and digital collectibles for the India’s 650 million+ mobile youth market.

In addition to some of the biggest comic book libraries from around the world, the platform will showcase and promote emerging rising star creators across India and give them a home to tell their stories. The TOONSUTRA app will feature a wide range of content for audiences across superhero, fantasy, romance, sci-fi, Bollywood, mythology, action, and more.

Devarajan brings decades of character entertainment experience to the startup and is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, where he has been teaching on AI, AR, VR and the Metaverse for over seven years, making him an early business school professor focused on the metaverse and its potential to disrupt media and society. Graphic India is also the first creator to launch NFT’s based on Indian characters.

In December of last year through Graphic India, he partnered with leading NFT entertainment company, Orange Comet, to launch the “Chakraverse” collection, based on the Indian superhero, Chakra The Invincible.

The collection was launched with GaurdianLink on Beyondlife.club and resulted in the most successful, US-India NFT sale in history, selling out of over 12,000 digital collectibles with each drop sold in less than 1-minute after being available. People from 14 countries participated in the auction, with 22% of the audience residing in India – showing the potential for digital character entertainment collectibles in India.

O‘Hi

O’Hi solves problems in real life instantly while anyone is at a café or a lounge. The app is making it convenient for tourists to interact with locals or fellow tourists in a random city.

Rupal & Adeeti, Founders, O’hi , said “We have an immense on-ground knowledge & learning of Human behaviors at different types of cafes, at different hours of the day as have been working, studying the same for over 4 years now. More and more Indian people are connecting via O’Hi every day, as the network breaks down geographic barriers and helps people in real life instantly while anyone is at a café or a lounge. We believe that the deep insights, learning they have accumulated in these months of piloting in Jaipur, Goa, Pune etc has enabled them to be on the path of the first big on-ground social network across the World.”

Origin

Founded in 2021, the brand is a result of Rupal Sharma and Adeeti Singh brainchild. It started with Jaipur and Goa as their pilot cities, intending to further move to Gurgaon, Pune and Bangalore.

The Young duo, Rupal & Adeeti have been friends for 13 years and have studied human behavior live at cafes. The fun fact is they are so deeply involved in this domain that it’s been over 4 years that every day they have visited at least 4 cafes to explore various things happening around in a cafe in terms of human behavior and need, seek learnings. The app is making it convenient for tourists to interact with locals or fellow tourists in a random city.

Growth Story

In just six months of running beta, O’hi has seen over 56K user behavior, they are diving deep into each & every expectation of authentic, instant socializing. They will soon be going for the next raise to move out of Beta, accelerate growth & double down on growth hacks, user intends that has shown strong signs of being a Global sensation.

Within half a year of existing in the market, the brand has a 56K plus user base, an initial round of funding and an extensive expansion plan.

Koo

Koo is an Indian microblogging and social networking service, based in Bengaluru, India. The platform’s innovative feature – Multi-lingual Koo (MLK) further breaks down language barriers through real-time translations, which enable a creator to connect with speakers of multiple languages and enhance reach.

Creators who type in one language have the freedom to get their text translated into either two, or all the other nine languages. A Bengali speaker might leverage MLK for translations to Tamil, Telugu and Kannada to connect with audiences in the South. Likewise with native speakers from other regions have the freedom to choose with whom to engage, irrespective of the language.

Philosophy

Being an inclusive, multi-lingual social media platform, Koo drives digital freedom of expression for a billion voices, empowering them to freely express themselves in their mother tongue.

India boasts 467 million social media users, who spend 2.36 hours per day on various platforms. But given that 90% Indians speak a native language, online communication has largely been limited to English speakers.

The rise of multi-lingual social media has attracted millions of first-time users, which includes native language speakers who would earlier feel alienated on English-first platforms.

A key driver of inclusion, MLK empowers creators and users to build and consume content in their mother tongue. By a mere click, content posted in one language gets translated into all the other nine languages that Koo presently offers. Since MLK is backed by robust language technologies, the translation retains the core meaning and sentiment attached to the original message.

Like India, 80% of the world speaks a native language. This feature has the potential to steer digital inclusion in a multi-lingual world by stimulating frictionless interaction between speakers of European, African or pan-Asian languages.

It can transform social media into a medium where people from diverse cultures and geographies come together, exchange thoughts and ideas, and celebrate their distinct heritage. MLK can champion digital empowerment and democratize the voice of billions in this ‘techade’.

Growth Story

With 40 million downloads and 7000 eminent personalities, several of whom actively leverage MLK to engage with masses, Koo is spearheading a revolution-of-sorts in the social media landscape.

MLK, which drives approximately 30 percent of the conversations on Koo, is actively used by several eminent personalities (like Sehrawat) to interact with masses in their mother tongue and accumulate followers. By harnessing MLK for every post, Sehrawat has managed to gain a nationwide following of 109.2K on the app.