Triller, the Los Angeles-based short video app backed by Hollywood producer Ryan Kavanaugh and music artistes such as Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne, aims to fill the void created by the exit of TikTok from India.

Although an urban-centric app, Triller is taking a different route in India, where it faces stiff competition from local players such as Roposo and Mitron.

One big difference between Triller and its competition, as Roohparvar explained, is the relationship and deals the start-up has with music labels and the world’s top musicians.

“When you put together singing and dancing together, a company like us and India, where song and dance is huge, whether it’s with your artistes in the label music industry or in the film industry, you have the best combination of both,” he explained.

“Our influencers see tremendous more value than just a single paycheck.” According to Roohparvar, artistes join Triller because they know that their music will be distributed on a platform that’s number one in the world.

In its lawsuit, Triller alleges TikTok is infringing on its patent for “creating music videos synchronized with an audio track.” Triller claims that it had patented the video format back in 2017.

Still, Triller has a long way to catch up with TikTok, which had 2 billion installs in April out of which 611 million were in India.

Even though TikTok is banned at present, if Microsoft manages to purchase TikTok’s US and India operations, it would be hard for Triller to compete.

To strengthen its presence in India, Roohparvar says Triller will get localised features soon that will help grow the popularity of the app in the country.