ShareChat parent Mohalla Tech delivered some hits and some misses in FY26. While the homegrown social media giant crossed the ₹1,000 Cr revenue mark and found a new growth engine in microdramas, what played the spoilsport were losses and surging expenses.

Loss Widens: Mohalla Tech’s FY26 losses were largely driven by rising expenses. Employee benefit costs more than doubled YoY in the fiscal under review, while forex losses also surged following Rupee’s depreciation. Meanwhile, marketing and user acquisition spending also jumped nearly 8X YoY as Mohalla Tech invested aggressively in growth.

The Microdrama Pivot: The launch of QuickTV opened a crucial new revenue stream and generated nearly a third of Mohalla Tech’s total income in FY26. This pivot helped buffer against advertising headwinds in the aftermath of the ban on real-money gaming last year. But the unit economics of microdramas remained challenging, forcing the platform to rely heavily on ad-supported models to mint revenues.

The EBITDA Turnaround: Despite the widening losses, Mohalla Tech’s operating performance showed improvement. The startup halved its FY26 EBITDA loss YoY to ₹91 Cr, suggesting that its core business is inching closer to profitability. The management also claimed that the startup posted its first EBITDA-positive quarter in Q1 FY27 due to better monetisation across subscriptions, livestreaming and advertising. 

The FY27 Test: Mohalla Tech is now targeting an EBITDA profit of ₹25 Cr in FY27, and claims to have already reported around ₹740 Cr in revenue in H1 FY27. The management now expects advertising to rebound strongly, with AVOD top line projected to cross ₹350 Cr in the ongoing fiscal.

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