VerSe Innovation, the parent of news aggregator Dailyhunt and short video app Josh, said that it had raised $805 million at a valuation of $5 billion. This is the most significant funding round by an Indian startup this year, especially when investors are turning cautious and taking a long time to close deals. The startup plans to utilise the funds to strengthen its AI and ML capabilities and invest in new efforts like live streaming and Web 3.0.

The investment was led by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) with a $425 million infusion. Other investors include Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board, Luxor Capital, and Sumeru Ventures. VerSe Innovation’s founders, Virendra Gupta and Umang Bedi said in a joint statement, “This partnership will strengthen our ability and leadership to build the largest AI-powered local language content platform across a family of apps serving the next users. With a strategic focus on video content building for India, we have witnessed explosive growth emerging from the next billion users coming out of regional India. This investment comes at a time when we are planning to further expand our offerings, monetisation models, deliver superlative Web 3.0 experiences for the globe and create an IPO-scale business.”