New Delhi: VerSe Innovation, the parent company of online news and content firm Dailyhunt and short video app Josh, has raised $450 million as a part of its new Series I funding round, just around six months after it secured Series H funding. VerSe Innovation said in a statement that its valuation has more than doubled in the past five months.
The company will use the fresh capital to consolidate its position in the content space, and deepen and broaden its artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science capabilities. However, Dailyhunt’s operating revenue reaches Rs 268 Cr in FY20 and the losses jump Rs 400 Cr mark. With this, VerSe Innovation’s valuation stands at nearly $3 billion.
With this, VerSe Innovation’s valuation stands at nearly $3 billion. Dailyhunt claims to serve over 300 million users every month whereas the short video app Josh claims to have 115 million monthly active users or MAUs and 56 million daily active users or DAUs.
Backed by the likes of Goldman Sachs, Falcon Edge Capital, Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, Dailyhunt became the first unicorn in the news aggregation space. VerSe claims to have a combined local language creator base of over 50 million, with over 80 billion video plays per month.
The fresh funding will give Ver Se firepower to battle it out in the growing Indian content-sharing and short-video app market that got a shot in the arm after the government last year banned the popular TikTok and other Chinese apps. However, Dailyhunt’s operating revenue reaches Rs 268 Cr in FY20 and the losses jump Rs 400 Cr mark.
