Why Indian short video apps have pivoted, merged or simply disappeared

At a time when an app fetches 100 million sign-ups in five days flat, three years can feel like a lifetime in tech. It was, then, a lifetime ago that Geet last went live on TikTok. On June 29, 2020, around midnight, the infotainment content creator addressed her 7.3 million followers on the Chinese short-videosharing app, just hours before it was banned in India over national security concerns. She remembers the frenzy that followed.

In the following months, a dozen, homegrown, venture capital-funded apps emerged to fill the void left by ByteDance’s flagship platform in India, then its biggest overseas market with 200 million active users.