The action is consistent with Snap’s strategy to enter the Indian market by utilizing local content producers.

The Sounds Creator Fund has officially opened in India, according to a Tuesday announcement from Snap, the parent company of the photo- and video-sharing app Snapchat. Through the fund, it will give rising, independent artists monthly awards of up to $50,000.

According to a statement from the firm, “Starting in mid-November, Snap will offer monthly awards of up to $50,000 to young, independent artists driving content creation on the platform and distributing music on Snapchat via DistroKid.”

DistroKid is a digital music distribution business that allows musicians to send their legally obtained music to social media apps like Snapchat and Instagram as well as streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.

The action is consistent with Snap’s strategy to enter the Indian market by working with local content producers. Last week, ET had reported that Snap was trying to increase its revenue in India. It has been doing this by hiring creators in non-metro markets to increase app engagement and the ad revenue.

Ajit Mohan, a former vice president and managing director of Meta in India, was recently hired by Snap to manage its Asia Pacific region. Mohan will be in charge of managing a number of significant markets in the area, including South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Malaysia, China, Australia, and New Zealand.

Particularly among users who belong to the Gen Z generation, or those who were born between 1997 and 2012, Snapchat’s popularity has been increasing in India. Evan Spiegel, a co-founder of Snap, told ET in October of last year that the app had reached 100 million monthly users in the nation, accounting for about a third of its 363 million users worldwide (as of Q3, 2022).

Snap has teamed up with DistroKid to manage and distribute payments of $2,500 per artist to up to 20 artists each month through the Sounds Creator Fund, which has been operational in the US.

Snapchat has a feature called Sounds that enables users to include authorized music in their posts. According to the firm, over 2.7 billion films on Snapchat have been made using music from Sounds since the feature’s inception, generating over 183 billion views worldwide.