BENGALURU: Local language technology platform VerSe Innovation, which is the parent company of Dailyhunt and short video platform Josh, has raised $805 million in the latest funding round at a valuation of $5 billion.
The round was led by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) along with Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, Luxor Capital, Sumeru Ventures and others.
The latest round comes close on the heels of a $650-million funding recently raised from Siguler Guff, Carlyle Group, Baillie Gifford, Falcon Edge Capital via Alpha Wave Ventures, Google, Microsoft and Qatar Investment Authority.
VerSe said that the investment will be focused on strengthening its leadership position as the fastest growing local language AI-driven content platform in the country. It also plans to deepen and broaden its AI/Machine Language and data science capabilities.
This will also drive deeper monetisation including influencers, e-commerce and Live streaming, VerSe added.
Virendra Gupta, Founder and Umang Bedi, Co-founder, VerSe Innovation, said, "With a strategic focus on video content and building for India, we have seen explosive growth emerging from the next billion users coming out of regional India."
This investment comes at a time when we are on a path to further expand our offerings, monetisation models, deliver superlative Web 3.0 experiences for the globe and create an IPO scale business, they added.
VerSe Innovation became the first unicorn in tech for local languages and counts Goldman Sachs, Falcon Edge Capital, Sequoia Capital India, Edelweiss and Omidyar Network, among others as existing investors. The company has raised over $2 billion of capital so far.
Josh claims to be the fastest-growing short-video app with over 150 million monthly active users and Dailyhunt serves over 350 million users every month offering content artefacts every day in 15 languages.