Social media platform ShareChat on Friday said it has shut fantasy sports platform Jeet11 and laid off nearly 5% employees as it re-evaluates its strategy.
“As a standard business practice, we periodically evaluate our strategies. We can confirm that we are ceasing operations of Jeet11 and have reorganised some of our functions, which meant the movement of talent within teams and a few employee exits. This process has impacted less than 5% of our employees,” the ShareChat spokesperson said in a statement.
“To succeed as India’s fastest-growing social media company, we assess our strategy regularly and make necessary changes to achieve our vision,” the response read.
Launched in 2020, Jeet11 competes with Dream11 and Mobile Premier League (MPL) in the fantasy sports market in India.
According to a report by the Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS) in collaboration with Deloitte earlier this year, India is the world’s biggest fantasy sports market with a user base of over 13 crore. India’s fantasy sports market is projected to grow from Rs 34,600 crore in FY21 to an estimated Rs 1,65,000 crore by FY25, clocking a CAGR of 38%.
This comes months after ShareChat attained unicorn status in April last year, and has cumulatively raised $1.2 billion since 2021.
The parent company of ShareChat runs short-video platforms Moj and TakaTak besides the ShareChat app, which together cater to over 400 million users. Earlier this year, ShareChat also acquired short-video app MX TakaTak from MX Media in a $700-million deal.
Founded in 2015 by Sachdeva, Farid Ahsan, and Bhanu Pratap Singh — graduates of IIT Kanpur — ShareChat is a vernacular social media platform that allows users to share their opinions, record their lives, and make new friends. It currently operates in various regional languages, including Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.