Qatar Investment Authority pumps in $100 million funds to VerSe Innovation

VerSe Innovation, a leading local language technology platform in India, has managed to raise over $100 million-plus in a Series H funding round. The funding round was led by Qatar Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar, and Glade Brook Capital Partners.

As per the reports, Canaan Valley Capital and existing investor Sofina Group also participated in this round, the firm.

Reports suggest that the company aims to use these fundings to expand its family apps focused on Indian uses. The capital generated will also be used to boost its homes grown short video app ‘Josh’. It is worth mentioning that the latest fund raising is followed by the investments of over $100 million from major tech giants like Google, Microsoft and AlphaWave in December 2019.

VerSe Innovation plans to deploy this capital steadily in the continued scaling up of ‘Josh’. The app claims to have over 85 million monthly active users, 40 million daily active users and 1.5+ billion video plays per day.

“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”, the statement said. Currently, Josh is the fastest growing and most engaged short-video app in India with over 85 million MAUs (Monthly Active Users), 40 million DAUs (Daily Active Users) and 1.5 billion video plays per day, it added.

VerSe Innovations proprietary technology platform also powers various technology solutions including 300 million-plus users on ‘Dailyhunt’ to consume content in their local language, the statement added.