Verse Innovation, the India-based operator of news app Dailyhunt, which counts corporates ByteDance, Google and Microsoft as investors, has secured more than $100m in series H funding, the Economic Times reported today.
Alternative asset manager Glade Brook Capital Partners and sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority co-led the round, which included Canaan Valley Capital and Sofina Group.
Founded in 2007, Verse’s lead product is a news reader app dubbed Dailyhunt (previously Newshunt) that creates a personalised news feed available in 14 Indian languages, for some 285 million daily users. It added a short video platform, Josh, to its offering in September 2020.
The company will use the money to increase its local language content and support content creators through artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.
The round comes after Verse raised $100m in December 2020 from investors including internet technology group Google and software producer Microsoft, as well as Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave Incubation unit, Lupa Systems and Sofina. The round, also classified as series H funding according to TechCrunch, valued it in excess of $1bn.
Verse had completed a $58.6m series G round in May 2020 at a pre-money valuation of $512m, with contributions from digital media company ByteDance, Advent International, Falcon Edge, Goldman Sachs and Lupa India.
Undisclosed backers injected $35m into the company in early 2019, following a $25m round three years earlier backed by Bytedance, Arun Sarin and returning investors Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital India and Omidyar Network.
Update: Advent International replaces Advent Capital Management in series G round investors
