 "Worldfloat challenges Facebook with 50 million users")
India's homegrown social networking site Worldfloat has said its user base has crossed 50 million, which will help it challenge the dominance of global giants like Facebook.
According to Worldfloat founder Pushkar Mahatta, the user base of the site has risen sharply in recent months on the back of several innovative features like free online movies and news and search engine facilities.
He said Worldfloat has users from across the world but the majority of them are from India.
Facebook has around 100 million users in India.
Mahatta said the Worldfloat user base has grown to 50 million in less than two years after its June 2012 launch.
He claimed that Worldfloat's user growth is much faster than Facebook and other social networking sites.
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Mahatta pointed out that Worldfloat offers about 100,000 free online movies to watch at the click of a button, a news search engine like Google news, a viral videos news platform with viral videos from all over the world with maximum views and an online university with computer and school courses.
Worldfloat has several other features like jobs and comparison engine and facilities to observe worldwide trends in movies, stock markets and celebrities. These features are not available on Facebook.
Mahatta said the site has got attractive valuations on the back of new features and fast growing user base.
"Worldfloat received a last valuation of about $300 million from venture capital funds around a year back when we were planning to sell 10% stake to raise capital for further expansion of our technologies, but we decided not to do so," he added.
"We will be adding nearly 30 new products to Worldfloat in the next six months. After that, we expect to get a valuation of nearly $500 million," he added.
Mahatta said the company plans to raise around $50 million by selling a 10% stake. The money will be used to fund the introduction of more advanced technologies that cater to the needs of larger-scale operations.