Eduardo Saverin-led B Capital backs Dailyhunt

Bengaluru-based Ver Se Innovations, which owns online news aggregator Dailyhunt, has raised Rs 73.3 crore (about $10 million as per current exchange rates) from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and Indian-origin investor Raj Ganguly-led B Capital Group.

The 11-year old company has allotted 42,137 Series H1 preference shares at an issue price of Rs 17,404 per share to the San Francisco- and Singapore-based venture capital firm, according to regulatory filings.

B Capital invests in B2B and B2B2C companies, in the areas of enterprise technology -- including SaaS, infrastructure artificial intelligence/machine learning and security -- along with fintech, health tech, consumer enablement technology, and transportation and logistics.

In July, B Capital marked the final close of its second fund at $820 million, taking the total funds under management to $1.4 billion. Its India portfolio includes fintech platform Khatabook, logistics solutions platform BlackBuck, scooter-sharing platform Bounce, packaging materials marketplace Bizongo and point-of-sale services startup Mswipe.

Launched as Newshunt in 2009, the news aggregator platform was founded by former Nokia executives Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni. It was acquired by Ver Se Innovations in 2012 and rebranded as Dailyhunt in 2015. The company is currently led by CEO Virendra Gupta.

Dailyhunt uses machine learning and deep learning capabilities to track user preferences to deliver news and content. The platform claims to offer content in 14 languages, licensed and sourced from over 50,000 content partners, to 285 million monthly active users. 

Dailyhunt has raised around $342 million since inception, according to data from VCCEdge. In April, the company bagged $22.5 million in a round led by hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital. Beijing-based content aggregator Byte Dance, private equity firm Advent Management and investment bank Goldman Sachs participated in the round.

The company counts venture capital firms Sofina, Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital India and Omidyar Network as investors too.

Dailyhunt formally launched its short-video app Josh in September, joining Mitron, Chingari, Trell, Roposo and ShareChat Moj in a race to fill the vacuum created by banned Chinese app TikTok. 

Available on Android and iOS, the short video app claims to have 24 million daily active users, more than 50 million downloads, with over one billion video plays per day and 15 million+ unique user generated content (UGC) pieces.

Earlier this year, Dailyhunt rival news curation app Inshorts launched location-based social networking video app Public. The video-based social network app for local services, such as businesses, jobs and classifieds, allows people to record and share happenings around them, enabling real-time local updates. Inshorts raised $35 million for the app from former Tiger Global Management executive Lee Fixel’s venture capital firm Addition.