VerSe Innovation has raised over $450 million in a recent financing round from Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford, affiliates of Carlyle Asia Partners Growth II, and others. The Google and Microsoft-backed startup is the parent firm of popular news app Dailyhunt and short video app Josh. It had raised $200 million in its previous financing round.
The funding was also joined by Sofina Group, Qatar Investment Authority, and BCap. VerSe Innovation is planning to extend its services to international markets. The startup claimed that its valuation has shown a considerable increase in the past five months. A correct amount is yet to be disclosed. In its Series H financing round, it was valued at over $1 billion.
VerSe Innovation boasts of over 115 million monthly active users of which 56 million use the app on a daily basis. Dailyhunt alone has gathered over 300 million monthly active users. Josh competes with apps like Moj and MX TakaTak. These apps were popularized in India after the country banned TikTok. Moj is operated by ShareChat which has a valuation of $2.88 billion and MX TakaTak is managed by MX Player.
VerSe Innovation is now planning to build a number of apps in different local languages to attract more users. Dailyhunt has content in 14 languages now. They also plan to employ this strategy in expanding to international markets. It is also working on improving its AI/ML stack for a more personalized experience.
Indian startups are attracting more and more investors and raising record capital in their financing rounds. This year, the number of startups that entered the unicorn club has crossed 20.
