At $1bn valuation, VerSe Innovation is India’s latest unicorn

With this fresh funding, the company is now valued at over $1 billion, making its debut as the first unicorn in tech for local languages.

Bengaluru: VerSe Innovation which is the parent company of vernacular content platform Dailyhunt and owns short video app Josh on Tuesday announced it has completed the funding round of more than $100 million from Google, Microsoft and AlphaWave (a unit of Falcon Edge Capital).

With this fresh funding, the company is now valued at over $1 billion, making its debut as the first unicorn in tech for local languages.

The company said it aims to utlise the new capital in scaling up of Josh, the augmentation of local language content offerings, the development of content creator ecosystem, innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) and the growth of its short-video platform.

“VerSe plans to empower the large and indigenous ecosystem of hundreds of millions of users and talented creators in every nook and corner of our country,” it said in a statement.

Existing investors Sofina Group and Lupa Systems also participated in this funding round.

Other existing blue-chip investors of VerSe Innovation include Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital India, Falcon Edge Capital, Goldman Sachs etc.

Josh currently represents over 200 creators, 10 biggest music labels, more than 15 million UGC creators and formidable user demographics.

“Currently, Josh is the fastest growing and most engaged short-video app in India with over 77 million MAUs (monthly active users), 36 million DAUs (daily active users) and more than 1.5 billion video plays per day,” the company informed.