Telegram raises $210 million through bond sales

Telegram has raised $210 million through bond sales this week from a number of investors, including its founder and chief executive Pavel Durov, as it navigates the slowing economy that has evaporated public markets’ appetite for listings.

The messaging app, used by over 800 million users each month, raised the capital by issuing bonds worth $270 million. “Because interest rates have gone up significantly since 2021, the bonds have a different issue price,” John Hyman, Telegram Chief Investment Adviser, told TechCrunch.

Telegram is still not profitable and the new financing is aimed at taking it closer to the “break-even” point, said Durov, claiming that his app was “closer to profitability in absolute numbers” than competitors including Twitter and Snap.

A set of “well-known funds with stellar reputations” purchased the bonds, Durov said without identifying them. Telegram’s Hyman told TechCrunch that these backers are “highly sophisticated global funds who specialise in bonds.”

Durov said in his post that he “personally bought” about a quarter of the new Telegram bonds, investing “tens of millions into Telegram’s growth.” Over the last 10 years, Durov said, he has spent hundreds of millions on the app to keep it operational.

Telegram has grown fast in recent years even as new social offerings continue to mushroom. The app has added over 300 million users in the past two and a half years and is attracting 2.5 million new signups each day.

For the Dubai-headquartered firm, improving the finances and becoming self-sufficient is the bigger challenge. Telegram — which has kickstarted its monetization engine in recent years, including launch of a subscription service — raised over $1 billion in debt financing by selling 5-year pre-IPO convertible bonds more than two years ago.

Telegram has been looking to go public for several years — it even tried a token sale (which was blocked by the SEC) — but the ongoing weakening global market condition means that it will have to continue to rely on private investors to bankroll its operations.

Several other social media startups, including Twitter, Discord and Reddit, have seen their valuations slashed by mutual fund investors after Meta and Snap shed tens of billions of dollars in value in the public market.

Telegram is adding Stories next month

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced today that the messaging app is adding Stories in early July. Durov says users have been asking for the feature for years, noting that more than half of all feature requests that Telegram receives are related to Stories. The company was initially against adding Stories because they “are already everywhere,” but wanted to listen to its users, Durov says.

With Stories on Telegram, users will be able to decide who can see each of their stories. You can choose to have your Stories viewable by everyone, your contacts, a few selected contacts or a list of close friends. Stories will be placed in an expandable section at the top of your chat list. Users will be able to hide Stories posted by any contact by moving them to the ‘Hidden’ list in their Contacts section instead of the main screen.

Users will have the option to add captions and links to their Stories. There’s also the option to tag other people in your Stories. Notably, you will be able to post photos and videos taken by the front and the rear cameras simultaneously in a BeReal-like style.

In addition, you will be able to choose when your story expires. You can have it expire in six, 12, 24, or 48 hours. Or, you can permanently display stories on your profile page, in a way that’s similar to how Instagram lets you display Story highlights.

“The ability to save your stories to the profile page will make Telegram profiles more informative and colorful,” Durov wrote in his announcement post. “You will not only be able to explore more content from your closest contacts, but finally discover more information about users you connect with in groups or channel comments. Speaking of channels, they will benefit from more exposure and subscribers: once we launch the ability to repost messages from channels to stories, going viral on Telegram will become a lot easier.”

Durov says following internal tests of Stories, even the skeptics on the Telegram team started to appreciate the feature, and that Telegram can no longer imagine the messaging service without it.

Stories are in their last testing phase and will become available in early July. Durov believes the feature will “herald a new era on Telegram,” and allow the platform to become more social that it currently is.

Telegram is adding Stories next month by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch

WhatsApp is working on introducing usernames to the app

WhatsApp has long relied on phone numbers as the only identity for accounts. Users need a phone number to create an account. Anyone in an individual or a group chat can see your phone number. This might be changing as WhatsApp is working on introducing usernames.

The latest beta version of WhatsApp’s app suggests that the company could introduce this feature in the future, according to a report from WABetaInfo. The report noted that the username section will be visible on the Profile page in Settings.

Image Credits: WABetaInfo

Separately, TechCrunch was able to confirm WABetaInfo’s report. We looked at the code of the latest Android app and found references to the username field.

Image Credits: TechCrunch

It’s not clear what process the Meta-owned app might introduce for users to pick a username as there are currently 2 billion people using the messaging app. The company didn’t comment on the story and didn’t share any details about the feature.

WhatsApp’s competing messaging app Telegram has given the ability for users to hide their contact and show their usernames instead. Last year, Telegram also launched auctions for premium usernames based on the TON blockchain. It will be interesting to see how WhatsApp approaches claims for premium usernames and how it plans to protect them.

At the moment, WhatsApp users in groups and communities can see each others’ phone numbers. When this feature rolls out, the app will most likely let people hide their phone numbers from people who are not in their contact book.

Earlier this month, WhatsApp rolled out a new privacy feature that allows users to hide and lock individual conversations. These conversations can only be unlocked with a device’s biometric authentication or password.

WhatsApp is working on introducing usernames to the app by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Telegram introduces a Power Saving Mode for battery preservation

Telegram has introduced a new Power Saving Mode to preserve the battery of your device. The mode kicks in when the battery dips below a certain percentage — which is configurable — and turns off resource-intensive features like auto-playing videos and GIFs, sticker animations, and background updates.

The new feature has its own menu in settings, which also has individual toggles for auto-playing videos, GIFs, sticker animations, emoji animations, interface effects, preloading media, and background updates (for iOS only). Users can turn these off permanently to save battery. The company said that it tested more than 200 Android phones and created “optimized default settings” for them.

Telegram Power saving mode

Image Credits: Telegram

Notably, WhatsApp doesn’t have a power saver mode, but it has settings to disable auto-download of media to save battery and storage.

Apart from the new battery-saving mode, Telegram has also rolled out a playback speed control for videos in chat. You can choose default speeds like 0.5x,1x,1.5x, and 2x, or use the slider to choose a custom speed.

Telegram playback speed

Image Credits: Telegram

What’s more, Telegram is introducing an auto-invite group links feature. When you are selecting people to join a group, if they have disabled auto-joining, they will be sent an invite link.

Along with this, Telegram is also pushing features like read time for messages in groups with less than 100 members, new animated emojis and interactive reactions, translated bot descriptions, and improved folder support on iOS.

These features are rolling out to all users with the latest Telegram update.

Last year, Telegram launched a premium subscription for $5 a month in June with features like exclusive stickers and reactions, and the ability to upload large files. In December, the company said that it had crossed the mark of 1 million paying users.

Telegram introduces a Power Saving Mode for battery preservation by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Telegram is auctioning phone numbers to let users sign up to the service without any SIM

After putting unique usernames on the auction on the TON blockchain, Telegram is now putting anonymous numbers up for bidding. These numbers could be used to sign up for Telegram without needing any SIM card.

Just like the username auction, you can buy these virtual numbers on Fragment, which is a site specially created for Telegram-related auctions. To buy a number, you will have to link your TON wallet (Tonkeeper) to the website.

You can buy a random number for as low as 9 toncoins, which is equivalent to roughly $16.50 at the time of writing. Some of the premium virtual numbers — such as +888-8-888 — are selling for 31,500 toncoins (~$58,200).

Telegram virtual numbers

How Telegram virtual numbers work Image Credits: Telegram

Notably, you can only use this number to sign up for Telegram. You can’t use it to receive SMS or calls or use it to register for another service.

For Telegram, this is another way of asking its most loyal supporters to support the app by helping it make some money. The company launched its premium subscription plan earlier this year. On Tuesday, the chat app’s founder Pavel Durov said that Telegram has more than 1 million paid users just a few months after the launch of its premium features. While Telegram offers features like cross-device sync and large groups, it’s important to remember that chats are not protected by end-to-end encryption.

As for folks who want anonymization, Telegram already offers you to hide your phone number. Alternatively, there are tons of virtual phone number services out there — including Google Voice, Hushed, and India-based Doosra — that allow you receive calls and SMS as well.

Telegram is auctioning phone numbers to let users sign up to the service without any SIM by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Telegram Premium tops 1 million subscribers

Telegram Premium has amassed over 1 million subscribers, less than six months after the popular instant messaging app launched the paid offering and began a serious effort to monetize the business.

Pavel Durov shared the update on his Telegram channel Tuesday, calling the milestone “one of the most successful examples of a social media subscription plan ever launched.”

The subscription, however, still “represents just a fraction of Telegram’s overall revenue,” he shared in the same update, optimistically hoping that one day Premium will rake in just as much money as ads.

The app, used by over 700 million monthly active users, launched Premium in late June, offering customers a range of additional features such as the ability to send files as large as 4 GB and faster downloads. The monthly subscription costs about $6 in the U.S. and the UK, and $2.2 in emerging markets such as India.

Telegram’s push to monetization comes at a time when its chief rival, WhatsApp, is also scrambling to find ways to make money. WhatsApp remains free and has no paid tier, but its parent firm Meta is increasingly bringing businesses to the instant messaging app. The firm appears to have dialled up its effort in recent months — and not everyone is happy about it.

The Dubai-headquartered Telegram, which has said in the past that it needed to make money to keep the platform afloat, citing computing costs, plans to expand its monetization efforts next year, Durov said. The firm is developing a host of decentralized tools, including non-custodial wallets and exchanges, he said late last month.

“Thanks to successful monetization, Telegram will be able to pay for the servers, traffic and wages necessary to keep building new features and supporting existing ones. While some other apps consider their users a tool to maximize revenue, we consider revenue a tool to maximize value for our users,” he wrote Tuesday.

Telegram Premium tops 1 million subscribers by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Telegram Premium tops 1 million subscribers

Telegram Premium has amassed over 1 million subscribers, less than six months after the popular instant messaging app launched the paid offering and began a serious effort to monetize the business.

Pavel Durov shared the update on his Telegram channel Tuesday, calling the milestone “one of the most successful examples of a social media subscription plan ever launched.”

The subscription, however, still “represents just a fraction of Telegram’s overall revenue,” he shared in the same update, optimistically hoping that one day Premium will rake in just as much money as ads.

The app, used by over 700 million monthly active users, launched Premium in late June, offering customers a range of additional features such as the ability to send files as large as 4 GB and faster downloads. The monthly subscription costs about $6 in the U.S. and the UK, and $2.2 in emerging markets such as India.

Telegram’s push to monetization comes at a time when its chief rival, WhatsApp, is also scrambling to find ways to make money. WhatsApp remains free and has no paid tier, but its parent firm Meta is increasingly bringing businesses to the instant messaging app. The firm appears to have dialled up its effort in recent months — and not everyone is happy about it.

The Dubai-headquartered Telegram, which has said in the past that it needed to make money to keep the platform afloat, citing computing costs, plans to expand its monetization efforts next year, Durov said. The firm is developing a host of decentralized tools, including non-custodial wallets and exchanges, he said late last month.

“Thanks to successful monetization, Telegram will be able to pay for the servers, traffic and wages necessary to keep building new features and supporting existing ones. While some other apps consider their users a tool to maximize revenue, we consider revenue a tool to maximize value for our users,” he wrote Tuesday.

Telegram Premium tops 1 million subscribers by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Telegram shares data of users accused of copyright violation following court order

Telegram has disclosed names of administrators, their phone numbers and IP addresses of channels accused of copyright infringement in compliance with a court order in India in a remarkable illustration of the data the instant messaging platform stores on its users and can be made to disclose by authorities.

The app operator was forced to shared the data after a teacher sued the firm for not doing enough to prevent unauthorised distribution of her course material on the platform. Neetu Singh, the plaintiff teacher, said a number of Telegram channels were re-selling her study materials without permission at discounted prices.

An Indian court earlier had ordered Telegram to adhere to the Indian law and disclose details about those operating such channels.

Telegram unsuccessfully argued that disclosing user information would violate the privacy policy and the laws of Singapore, where it has located its physical servers for storing users data. In response, the Indian court said the copyright owners couldn’t be left “completely remediless against the actual infringers” because Telegram has chosen to locate its servers outside the country.

In an order last week, Justice Prathiba Singh said Telegram had complied with the earlier order and shared the data.

“Let copy of the said data be supplied to Id. Counsel for plaintiffs with the clear direction that neither the plaintiffs nor their counsel shall disclose the said data to any third party, except for the purposes of the present proceedings. To this end, disclosure to the governmental authorities/police is permissible,” said the court (PDF) and first reported by LiveLaw.

A Telegram spokesperson declined to say whether the app operator shared private data.

“Telegram stores very limited or no data on its users. In most cases, we can’t even access any user data without specific entry points, and we believe this was the case here. Consequently, we can’t confirm that any private data has been shared in this instance,” Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn told TechCrunch.

India is one of the largest markets for Telegram, which has amassed nearly 150 million users in the South Asian market.

Telegram shares data of users accused of copyright violation following court order by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Telegram announces username auctions on TON blockchain

Telegram announced today that will it hold an auction for usernames — for both individual accounts and channels — through a marketplace built on top of the TON blockchain.

In August, Telegram founder Pavel Durov first mentioned the idea by noting the possibility of adding “a little bit of Web 3.0 to Telegram in the coming weeks.” At that time, he said he was impressed by the success of the TON Foundation’s auction of domain names.

“I’m really impressed by the success of the auction TON recently conducted for their domain/wallet names. Wallet.ton was sold for 215,250 Toncoin (~$260000) while casino.ton was sold for ~$244000.

If TON has been able to achieve these results, imagine how successful Telegram with its 700 million users could be if we put reserved @ usernames, group and channel links for auction,” he said. Now the company is putting this plan into action.

Telegram and TON Foundation are using a separate website Fragment.com as a hub for these auctions. Users will be able to log into the site using Telegram, the tonkeeper app, or their TON-based wallets. The website will also help users link their Telegram accounts to the handles that they have bought.

At launch, the chat app is auctioning four and five-character handles that will be available for everyone. Telegram users can also put up their own existing handles for auction. Each handle put up for auction will end in a week with an extra hour for final bidding. The company is setting a minimum auction value for four character handles at 10,000 toncoins — which converts to roughly $18,400 at the time of writing.

“For the first time, social media users will be able to transparently prove that they own their handles thanks to their tokenisation on the TON blockchain,” Andrew Rogozov, Founding Member of the TON Foundation said in a statement

Telegram had big ambitions in the web3 world but it had to ditch those ambitions. In 2018, the company hatched up plans for Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain project and an initial coin offering (ICO). The project got backing from big-name investors including Benchmark and Lightspeed Capital, which put up $1.7 billion. However, after a legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Telegram was forced to forsake the project.

After Telegram stopped working on TON, various independent groups continued the development with Toncoin getting backing from Durov and winning the rights to ton.org website in 2021. But the Telegram founder has tried to distance himself from direct involvement with the project.

Telegram has been trying various methods to earn money to keep the company sustainable. Last year it introduced ad spots on public channels. Earlier this year, the company introduced a paid plan that allows large file transfers, exclusive stickers and reactions, and the ability to convert voice messages into text. The new announcement of username auction on the blockchain is another step to get some more moolah in the bank.

Telegram announces username auctions on TON blockchain by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Telegram cuts subscription fee by more than half in India

Telegram has cut the monthly subscription fee for its premium tier by more than half in India, just months after introducing the offering as it attempts to aggressively cash in on a large user base in one of its biggest markets.

In a message to users in India on Saturday, Telegram said it was making the subscription available in the country at a discount. The monthly subscription now costs customers 179 Indian rupees ($2.2), down from 469 Indian rupees ($5.74) earlier. The app’s monthly subscription, called Telegram Premium, costs between $4.99 to $6 in every other market.

Users who have not received the message are also seeing the new price in the settings section of the app, they said and TechCrunch independently verified.

India is one of the largest markets for Telegram. The instant messaging app has amassed over 120 million monthly active users in the country, according to analytics firm data.ai. (An industry executive shared the figures with TechCrunch.) That figure makes the app the second most popular in its category in the country, only second to WhatsApp, which has courted over half a billion users in the South Asian market.

Telegram, which claims to have amassed over 700 million monthly active users globally, introduced the optional subscription offering in June this year in a move it hopes will improve its finances and continuing to support a free tier. Premium customers gain access to a wide-range of additional features such as the ability to follow up to 1,000 channels, send larger files (4GB) and faster download speeds.

The Dubai-headquartered firm joins a list of global tech firms that offer their services for lower cost in India. Apple’s music app charges $1.2 for the individual monthly plan in the country, whereas Netflix’s offerings starts at as low as $1.83 in the country.

Telegram cuts subscription fee by more than half in India by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch