MyChat, a messaging app from MySQUAR, allows users to talk in Myanmar language. PHOTO/MYSQUAR
The first Myanmar-language social media platform is set to debut on the London Stock Exchange’s international market for growing brands.
MySQUAR, which is on course to have more than 460,000 users by the end of this month and almost 1.5 million by 2016, hopes to be worth $25 million when it floats on London’s Aim this spring, according to the Financial Times.
The company, whose chairman is Piers Pottinger, one of the co-founders of prestigious British PR firm Bell Pottinger Communications, hopes to raise $2.5 million before then.
“It is tremendously exciting to be involved in a business which is very much central to the development and transformation of Myanmar,” said Pottinger. “MySQUAR is a genuinely pioneering venture.”
Last August, the platform launched mobile messaging app MyChat, which was designed with Myanmar youth in mind. Users can switch between English and Myanmar languages and exchange emoticons wearing thanakha.
It faces competition from Facebook and Viber, which both enjoy popularity in the country.
