The social media market has become one of the biggest businesses in the past decade, with Facebook, the biggest social media company on the planet, surpassing the $1 trillion mark. Thus, the potential for social media platforms is huge on the global stage, which is why Indian firms have been eyeing overseas expansion for quite some time. With this exact goal VerSe Innovation, the parent company of news aggregator DailyHunt and TikTok like video based app Josh, has raised $450Mn, just five months after securing the $200Mn that turned it into a unicorn.
Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford, affiliates of Carlyle Asia Partners Growth II participated in the round, which also saw capital coming from existing investors like Sofina Group, Qatar Investment Authority and BCap.
The upstart plans to invest in broadening its AI / ML stack to offer users more personalized experience.
This is the backbone of VerSe innovation-personalized experience, since it differentiates itself from the competition on the basis of language. DailyHunt, the app that started it all, is available in 14 different languages, allowing users from different cultures to keep updated on current events.
The company plans to use this same strategy in international markets as well, allowing users to operate its apps in the language that they are most comfortable with.
Josh, a TikTok inspired app, competes directly with Instagram Reels, ShareChat’s Moj and other similar offerings in India. Most of these alternatives surfaced after the Chinese app was banned in the country due to security reasons. Thus, in India, Josh has never had to compete with TikTok. This might change as it enters new geographies, where TikTok is still up and running. Thus, its vernacular approach might help it win over customers, since a lot of users might not be able to get on the app due to language barriers.
Josh has already amassed over 115 million monthly active users, 56 million of whom use the app each day. Dailyhunt, on the other hand, has amassed over 300 million monthly active users.
