VerSe Innovation, the parent company of famous news aggregator Dailyhunt and short video app Josh, raised over $ 450 million in a fresh round of funding, just five months after raising $ 200 million, as the Indian firm looks to expand its capabilities to international markets.

The fresh round of funding comes at a time when Indian startups are raising unprecedented amounts of money from well-known investors. This year, India, the world's second-largest internet market, has spawned more than 20 unicorns, up from 11 last year and six in 2019.

After China, another rare huge growth market implemented a series of regulatory adjustments that wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars in recent weeks, some investors have doubled down on the South Asian sector.

VerSe Innovation claims that its market capitalization has more than doubled in the last five months, although it does not provide an exact figure. In its Series H fundraising round, the company was valued at over $1 billion.

Josh, according to the Google and Microsoft-backed business, has over 115 million monthly active users, 56 million of whom use the app every day. The company states that Dailyhunt has more than 300 million monthly active users.

Josh is up against a bunch of other short video apps namely Moj and MX TakaTak.

Moj, which claims to have over 100 million users, is run by Tiger Global-backed ShareChat, which was recently valued at $2.88 billion in a financing round. MX TakaTak’s parent firm MX Player is also currently engaging with investors to raise a round that would value the startup at over $1 billion, according to three people aware of the development.

VerSe Innovation plans to create a family of apps that will cater to customers in a variety of languages. Similar to Dailyhunt, for instance, which delivers content from over 100,000 content partners and authors in 14 languages. VerSe Innovation aims to use the same method as it expands into overseas markets.

The company also stated that it intends to invest in widening its AI/ML stack to provide users with a more personalized experience.

VerSe Innovation's Sequence I round was backed by Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford, Carlyle Asia Partners Progress II colleagues, and others, whereas current traders Sofina Group, Qatar Funding Authority, and BCap took part.

After India banned TikTok in mid-2020 due to cybersecurity concerns, all of these applications sprung up to capitalize on the situation. India was designated as ByteDance's most important overseas market, with over 200 monthly active users.