VerSe Innovation Pvt, which owns and operate short video app Josh and local language content delivery platform 'Dailyhunt', has raised $805 million in funding, from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board along with participation from Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Luxor Capital and Sumeru Ventures, said a report by Bloomberg Quint.
This round of funding of VerSe is said to be India’s largest venture capital round of this year, to date. Majority of funds raised, about $425 million, in VerSe Innovation Pvt.’s latest round, came from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
The fresh funds raised will be utlized to broaden the company's artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, using data science to boost user engagement and retention. The capital raised in latest round will also drive revenues through influencer-led commerce and live commerce.
Josh was launched a few months after TikTok was banned in India in year 2020. In the same year, VerSe Innovation raised over $100 million, which was followed by another $100 million fundraise from Google, Microsoft, AlphaWave.
Last year in August, the Bangalore-based VerSe has joined hands with computer vision company D-ID to introduce a new photo-to-video feature for its Josh app's users. This allowed Josh users to create videos from still photos, and add music. The users can animate their photos with three categories of movement such as funny, nostalgic, and dancing, as well as share the animated videos with followers.
Last year in March, Josh set up "Josh Studios", with the appointment of content creator Seher Bedi. Equipped with proprietary Studio Spaces, VR and AR tech, Josh Studios is to encourage creators and teach them digital marketing skills to help them produce content as they desire.
According to the company, Josh has 150 million monthly active users, while Dailyhunt has 350 million. Over 90% of the content on these two apps is in Indian languages.
According to Virendra Gupta, founder of VerSe, the company will be profitable within the next two or three years.
Advertisements