Meme Chat: Kyle Fernandes is Building the "Wall Street" of Virality through the Creator Economy

January 5, 2026 12 min read

In the hyper-connected world of Gen Z and Millennials, memes are no longer just internet jokes—they are the primary language of digital conversation. While most see a viral image as a fleeting moment of laughter, Kyle Fernandes, the 24-year-old Founder of Meme Chat, sees it as a multi-million dollar asset class. Having started his first anonymous social network at 15 and built meme empires like The Sarcastic Indian to market his products, Kyle is now building the ultimate platform where virality meets value. Today, Meme Chat is a thriving ecosystem where 1.3 million monthly active users don't just share memes—they trade them, trend them, and turn them into a professional livelihood.

On the ELI Podcast, Kyle shares how he transitioned from a teenage programmer inspired by The Social Network to leading a 500 Startups-backed venture that is redefining the creator economy. Backed by investors like Beenext and processing a million dollars in revenue, Meme Chat is proving that in the age of attention, the person who controls the punchline controls the market.

The Monetization of Humour

Kyle identifies a critical gap in the creator economy: while video creators on YouTube have established ad-revenue streams, meme creators were often ignored. Meme Chat solves this by creating direct monetization channels through brand partnerships, NFT minting, and social commerce.

The Accidental Empire: From Meme Pages to Marketplace

Kyle’s journey began at age 15 with an anonymous social network that scaled to 100,000 users. To market the app on a student budget, he built massive meme pages like Indian Say and The Sarcastic Indian, eventually reaching a following of 4 million.

"When these pages became big, brands like Amazon Prime, OnePlus, and ALTBalaji came to us," Kyle recalls. "They wanted us to make memes specifically for them because they saw how effective they were as a marketing tool. That was the epiphany: memes carry immense value, and there needed to be a platform to capitalize on that value creation."

"Meme Chat Keyboard": Chatting in the Language of Bharat

The name "Meme Chat" reflects Kyle's vision of memes as a chat environment. Rather than trying to build a new messenger to compete with WhatsApp or Instagram, Kyle’s team developed a specialized Meme Chat Keyboard.

"We built a keyboard that integrates with any chat app. It allows introverts to look cool and enhances conversations with instant, contextual memes. It’s not just a chat application; it’s an enablement layer for billions of conversations happening every second on WhatsApp and Telegram."

The Multi-Layered Revenue Engine

Meme Chat has pioneered several monetization models that make it stand out from typical social media apps in India:

The Meme Chat Business Model

Brand Partnerships: Brands provide meme templates, and Meme Chat's creators generate thousands of custom memes, for which they get paid.
Meme Club (NFTs): Creators can mint their viral, authentic memes into NFTs, which are traded on a proprietary marketplace with exclusive holder utilities.
Meme Chat Store: A social commerce arm where viral memes are transformed into physical merchandise like hoodies and t-shirts.
Meme Ad Platform: A contextual ad network currently in development that allows brands to target audiences through subtle, unskippable meme-based ads.

Scale, Technology, and the ML Edge

With 1.3 million monthly active users (MAU) and over 210,000 daily active users (DAU), Meme Chat is a heavy-duty data company. Their tech stack, built by Kyle and his co-founder Taaran Chanana (both B.Tech graduates from SRM University), relies on advanced machine learning for three core functions:

Recommendation Engine: Training multiple techniques to deliver the most relevant, "sticky" content to each user's feed.
Moderation: An extremely crucial AI layer to ensure the quality and safety of user-generated content.
Face Swap: Using computer vision to allow users to swap their own faces into popular meme loops.

Scale and Momentum

User Base: 1.3M MAU and 2.1 Lakh DAU.
Revenue: ~$1 Million annually.
Power Users: ~20% of the audience are dedicated power users, with a goal to reach 50%.
Backing: Part of 500 Startups and successfully raised Series A led by Beenext.

The Meaning of Entrepreneurship

For Kyle, being an entrepreneur is about being a **Master of Constraints**. "It's about building a big business in a very constrained environment," he defines. "Whether you're in school or college, or trying to convince skeptical VCs, it’s about figuring out the best next move—like a game of chess."

Kyle's Advice for Founders

"Learn to let go fast. Don't get emotionally attached to specific features or products. As an entrepreneur, you have biases, but it's not about you—it's about what the people want. If a feature isn't working, be practical, kill it, and move to the next innovation."

The Vision: 1 Billion "Meme Talkers"

Kyle Fernandes is bulletproof to failure. "If my venture failed tomorrow, I'd be excited to start something new," he laughs. His end vision for Meme Chat is to reach a billion people internationally, creating a platform as influential as TikTok or Facebook where memes are the universal language of livelihood. As they continue to bridge the gap between digital data and cultural punchlines, Meme Chat is ensuring that the next time you laugh at a meme, you're looking at the future of the global economy.