VerSe Innovation, the parent company of Dailyhunt and Josh, has raised almost Rs 207 crore ($28 million) from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) as part of its Series I fundraising round. CPPIB has been allocated 50,148 Series I Preference shares at an issue price of Rs 41,283.50 per share by the firm.
VerSe Innovation had previously signed definitive documents for a $450 million+ Series I fundraising deal with notable worldwide investors such as Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford, Carlyle Asia Partners Growth II affiliates, and others. Existing investors Sofina Group, Qatar Investment Authority, and BCap each contributed more than their pro rata share in this round, resulting in VerSe Innovation’s valuation more than doubling from its last round five months prior.
The multi-million-dollar investment followed a $200 million+ fund raise from Falcon Edge Money in February 2021, which included Alpha Wave Ventures, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Google, Microsoft, and QIA, bringing the total capital raised in the first half of 2021 to more than $650 million.
VerSe Innovation’s patented technology platform, which includes ‘Josh,’ India’s largest short video platform, and ‘Dailyhunt,’ India’s largest local language content platform, serves one out of every two internet users in the country. Josh is India’s fastest-growing and most-engaged short-video app, with over 115 million monthly active users (MAUs), 56 million daily active users (DAUs), and the industry’s top DAU/MAU ratio of 49 percent. Josh represents India’s top 200+ finest creators, 15 largest music labels, best-in-class content creation tools, hottest entertainment genres, and formidable user demographics.
Every month, Dailyhunt serves more than 300 million people, providing content artefacts in 14 languages from a licenced creative ecosystem of more than 100,000 content partners and individual content creators.