Dailyhunt parent raises $805 mn, valued at $5 bn

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Verse Innovation Pvt. Ltd, the operator of news aggregator Dailyhunt and short video app Josh, on Tuesday said it raised $805 million as part of a Series J funding round.

The amount was raised at a valuation of around $5 billion, a 1.5 times increase in less than three months, co-founders Umang Bedi and Virendra Gupta said in an interview. Verse Innovation was valued at $3.1 billion in January, according to regulatory filings, when it raised $28 million as part of its Series I funding round from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments).

CPP Investments also led the latest round with $425 million. In addition, new investors, including Ontario Teachers‘ Pension Plan Board, Luxor Capital, Sumeru Ventures and existing investors Sofina Group and Baillie Gifford, also joined the round.

“We believe the team is just getting started creating an Iposcale institution and look forward to the next phase of this journey,” said Vikram Vaidyanathan, MD, Matrix India.

The fundraising did not include a secondary component and existing investors, including Matrix Partners, the secondlargest external shareholder in the company after CPPIB with around 9% stake, remain invested. Matrix Partners invested in Verse Innovation as early as 2009, according to VCCEDGE, the intelligence platform of Vccircle.

Verse Innovation will use the fresh capital to deepen and broaden its AI, ML and data science capabilities, the company said in a statement.

The funding round comes at a time stocks of recently listed new-age tech firms have taken a severe beating, and heavily funded startups may be looking at down-rounds or even losing their unicorn status due to concerns triggered by the uncertain geopolitical climate. Unicorns are private companies that are valued at over $1 billion. Last month, Vccircle reported that Blinkit is set to merge with online food aggregator and delivery platform Zomato, resulting in the quick commerce firm losing its unicorn tag.

The company is making forays into Web3 by providing experiences across its local language creator base of over 50 million creators and its local language content ecosystem. The company claims over 80 billion video plays per month.