“KEPT GROWING THE CORE BUSINESS”

“Always focus on core elements such as users, engagement, technology and monetisation. Let the metrics and outcomes speak for themselves, recognition and valuation will follow.”

- Vijayalakshmi Sridhar

Company VerSe Innovation

Business Technology content platform

Incorporated April 2007

Funding till date Over $650 million

Scale of business

DailyHunt has 300-million plus monthly active users; Josh has 115-million plus

Next what?

More ways of monetisation, including live streaming and content around e-commerce experiences; exploring other geographies

WHEN BENGALURU-BASED VERSE Innovation., the parent firm of news aggregator daily hunt and short-video app Josh, raised its first $200 million in March, its offer was oversubscribed three times. As dailyhunt showed upbeat revenue growth and Josh picked up momentum, VerSe, founded by Umang Bedi and Virendra Gupta, made it as one of India’s tech unicorns. Dailyhunt currently has 300-million plus monthly active users (MAUs). Josh, a seeming twist on Tik Tok’s dynamic that has made the creator platform and economy accessible to vernacular language users, has 115-million plus MAUs — the made in India and made for India product for local, non-English audiences is competing with the duopoly of Google and Facebook, which has dominated the digital technology market so far. Another new platform is set to be added soon to the VerSe family with an AI-ML engine to communicate with audiences across 14 languages.

The Idea!

Umang Bedi (U.B.):