Josh and Dailyhunt parent, VerSe Innovation has laid off 5 per cent of its 3,000 members team to ensure the long-term viability of its business.

“Given the current economic climate, like other businesses, we’ve evaluated our strategic priorities. Considering the long-term viability of the business and our people, we have taken steps to implement our regular bi-annual performance management cycle and made performance & business considerations to streamline our costs and our teams. This has impacted 5 per cent of our 3000-strong workforce,” said a company spokesperson.

In addition, to ensure long-term profitable growth, the company has also exercised fiscal and employee prudence and implemented an 11 per cent salary cut for all individuals with salaries above 10 Lakh per annum. “We remain extremely committed and bullish across our entire family of apps: Josh, Dailyhunt & PublicVibe to drive profitable growth,” the spokesperson added.

This development comes almost eight months after the company raised $805 million funding at $5 billion valuation. Closely after this fundraise, VerSe Innovation has also launched Dailyhunt’s operations in the Middle East. At the time of recent fundraising, VerSe Innovation had plans to use the funds to deepen its AI/ML and data science capabilities, drive monetisation through influencers, e-commerce and live streaming along with forays into Web 3.0 experiences.”

Short-video app, Josh has over 163 million MAUs (Monthly Active Users), 80 million DAUs (Daily Active Users), and 30 minutes average time spent. Whereas, local language content platform Dailyhunt had over 350 million MAUs and over 100,000 content partners and individual content creators as of April. Further, the hyperlocal video app PublicVibe, which was acquired by VerSe in 2021, had 5 million MAUs in April.

In FY22, ​​VerSe Innovation reported a 3x jump in losses at ₹2,500 crore against a revenue of ₹965 crore, which was almost 45 per cent higher than the ₹666 crore revenue reported in FY21. Employee benefit expenses were the second largest expense for the company in FY22 after business promotion expenses. VerSe spent ₹731 crore on employee benefits and ₹2,693 crore on business promotion in FY22. .

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