VerSe Innovation Pvt. Ltd, the parent of local language news aggregator Dailyhunt and short-video app Josh, has raised $450 million in funding from investors including Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford and Carlyle Asia Partners Growth II.
Existing investors Sofina Group, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and BCap also participated in the Series I round.
With this, VerSe Innovation’s valuation stands at nearly $3 billion, said a person aware of the discussion, requesting anonymity. The latest round will also see some employees and early-stage investors sell their stocks, the person added.
This is the third major fundraising for VerSe Innovation in nine months. It has raised more than $650 million in funding since December. In its previous Series H round in February, VerSe raised more than $200 million from the likes of Falcon Edge Capital via Alpha Wave Ventures, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Google, Microsoft and QIA.
The company had set out to raise roughly $250 million as a part of this round after it witnessed investor interest for its previous fundraise, the person cited above said. According to VerSe, the investment will be focused on consolidating its leadership position in the content space, as well as for deepening and broadening its artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and data science capabilities.
It will also enhance monetization capabilities on its platform by introducing e-commerce and live streaming. It is expected to launch live-streaming and influencer-led commerce on its platform by the end of this year, founders of VerSe confirmed to Mint.
“This round was significantly oversubscribed. The biggest differentiator for us in the market is that we built our AI and ML capabilities before we entered into the short-form video space. Further, we haven’t gone behind celebrities but built the ecosystem with influencers in Tier 2 and 3 geographies, bringing content diversity. We have been profitable on our core Dailyhunt business and are focusing on monetization now for Josh,” said Umang Bedi, co-founder of VerSe.
Source: Mint