Google Backed Tech Platform VerSe Hits a $5 Billion Valuation Following an $805M Funding Round

India based local language technology company developing a discovery platform to consume and socialize with media VerSe Innovation announced having hit a $5 billion market valuation following a recently concluded $850 million financing round.

The funding round by the Google backed company was led by Canada’s top pension fund and it attracted high ranking participants including; Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Sumeru Ventures, Luxor Capital and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board.

The company says it will be using proceeds from the financing round to reinforce the AI-powered local language platform across ifs family apps which target the next billion of internet users in the world’s largest democracy.

The Josh app, subsidiary short video space of VerSe currently has over 150 million monthly active users. The app competes with locally grown rival Moj and Meta Platforms Inc. (FB) owned Instagram Reels.

Popularity of the above platforms sprouted rapidly in India after the authorities blocked popular short-video app TikTok in June 2020 following a border crisis with China.

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