VerSe Innovation raises Rs 3,349 crore, doubles valuation in five months

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], Aug 12 : Local language technology platform VerSe Innovation said on Thursday it has raised and signed definitive documents for 450 million dollars (about Rs 3,349 crore) in a series one funding round from marquee global investors Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford, affiliates of Carlyle Asia Partners Growth II and others.
Existing investors Sofina Group, Qatar Investment Authority and BCap also participated north of their pro-rata in this round, resulting in VerSe Innovation more than doubling its valuation from its prior round five months ago.
The multi-million-dollar investment follows close on the heels of a 200 million dollar fund raise from Falcon Edge Capital via Alpha Wave Ventures, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Google, Microsoft and QIA which concluded in February, taking the total capital raise in the first half of 2021 to beyond 650 million dollars.
The investment will be focused on strengthening the company's leadership position as the largest, fastest growing local language AI driven content platform in the country.
VerSe plans on both deepening and broadening its AI/ML and data science capabilities to further widen its leadership position across all user, engagement and retention metrics, drive further on monetisation including e-commerce and live streaming.
It also plans to further cement its market leadership across its local language creator base of over 50 million creators as well as its local language content ecosystem which experiences over 80 billion video plays per month.