VerSe Innovation, homegrown local language technology platform and parent company of DailyHunt and short-video platform Josh has raised over $100 million in a Series H funding round led by global investors Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar and Glade Brook Capital Partners.

Canaan Valley Capital and existing investor Sofina Group also participated in this round. The multi-million-dollar investment comes along the heels of a $100 million+ fundraise from Google, Microsoft and AlphaWave in December 2020.

Also read: VerSe Innovation raises over $100 mn from Google, Microsoft, others

With this new infusion of capital, QIA and Glade Brook Capital Partners have joined the company’s existing blue-chip investors that include Google, Microsoft, AlphaWave, Goldman Sachs, Sofina Group, Lupa Systems, Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital India, Falcon Edge Capital and Omidyar Network, among others. Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to VerSe Innovation on the transaction.

VerSe Innovation plans to deploy this capital steadily in the continued scaling up of its ‘Made in India’ short video platform Josh, the company said in an official press release.

“This will include the augmentation of local language content offerings, the development of its content creator ecosystem, innovation in AI and ML and more importantly, creation of opportunity for India’s vast talent pool,” it said.

Also read: Saregama strikes licencing deal with short video platform Josh

The platform has over 85 million MAUs (Monthly Active Users), 40 million DAUs (Daily Active Users) and 1.5+ billion video plays per day.

VerSe’s proprietary technology platform also powers the content discovery platform Dailyhunt. The app provides content artefacts in 14 Indian languages and has over 300 million users.

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