VerSe Innovation Pvt. Ltd, 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 had turned unicorn (statups with $1 billion in valuation) in December last year after raising over $100 million from Google and other investors.
It raised another more than $100 million in quick succession in February led by sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and US-based alternative asset manager Glade Brook Capital Partners.
The latest Series I funding was raised from marquee global investors including Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford, affiliates of Carlyle Asia Partners Growth II and others.
Existing investors Sofina Group, QIA and BCap also participated as a part of this round.
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.
It will also enhance monetisation capabilities on its platform through introducing e-commerce and live streaming.
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.
Just last month, Mohalla Tech Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates Indian language social media platform ShareChat and short video platform Moj, raised an additional $145 million (Rs 1076 crore) as part of its Series F funding round led by Temasek and Moore Strategic Ventures.
ShareChat has also been active in making acquisitions. It acquired meme-sharing platform Memer; hyperlocal startup Circle Internet; video production firm HPF Films; and social commerce platform Elanic.
In December last year, Glance raised $145 million (about Rs 1,070 crore) from Google and Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel’s investment firm Mithril Capital.
Earlier in June, Glance said it will acquire social commerce firm Shop101 that is backed by venture capital firms such as Kalaari Capital and Stellaris Venture Partners.
