Verse Innovation, the parent company of the short video app Josh and content aggregator app Dailyhunt, has raised over $100 million in funding from AlphaWave, Google, and Microsoft at a valuation of more than $1 billion. It is the latest company to join the list of unicorns in India.
The funds will be directed to the company’s short video app Josh that competes with MX TakaTak, Roposo, Moj Mitron, Trell, and Chingari and currently banned TikTok. The app is available in 12 Indian languages. The funding will also be used in the augmentation of local language content offerings, the development of content creator ecosystem, and innovation in AI and ML, the company said on Tuesday. Currently, the app has over 200 creators, 10 music labels, over 15 million user-generated content (UGC) creators, etc. with more than 77 million monthly active users and 36 million daily active users, the company said.
A report by RedSeer reveals that short-form content apps saw a decline in monthly time spent by users to just 37 billion minutes in July 2020 that further increased to 95 billion minutes till early December. India currently has around 45 percent, that is, 275 million users who access short-form content on various platforms. This number is expected to grow to 580 million users and around 430 million MAUs by FY25.
