[Funding alert] Bengaluru-based content and news platform Dailyhunt raises $23M in Series G round

News platform DailyHunt on Tuesday said it raised $23.5 million (approximately Rs 180 crore), in a Series G funding round led by existing investors such as ByteDance, FalconEdge, Advent Management and Goldman Sachs.

ALSO READ

Dailyhunt acquires LocalPlay to boost hyperlocal presence in Tier II and III geographies

The premium amount per share was capped at Rs 12,965.84, while the nominal amount was Rs 30 per share, according to the regulatory filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA),

A total of 1.38 lakh fully convertible shares were allotted to the four investors. Out of this, FalconEdge was allotted 55,294 shares while the other three participants were allotted 27,647 shares each.

Started as NewsHunt in 2009 by ex-Nokia employees Chandrashekhar Sohoni and Umesh Kulkarni, the platform was acquired by Verse Founder, Virendra Gupta, in 2012.

With a strong focus on customer retention, content experimentation and artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning technologies, Dailyhunt claims to be among the fastest growing apps in India, in terms of absolute numbers of new customers being added every month. 

In June 2019, Dailyhunt acquired LocalPlay, a hyperlocal video and news content application, in a bid to boost its presence in Tier II and III geographies.

In an earlier conversation with YourStory, Virendra said:

"Our vision is to be a dominant part of their (lower-tier cities') first Internet experience and serve these users with world-class products, starting with Newshunt, eBooks, iPayy, and many more.

Speaking of investing in Dailyhunt, Zhang Yiming, Founder and CEO of ByteDance, said he believes in the Bengaluru-based startup's long-term potential to be a leading mobile content platform. Dailyhunt serves a massive unmet opportunity of providing local language content to Indian mobile users, he added.

Dailyhunt has raised a total of more than $120 million in funding over seven rounds, so far, from investors including Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital India, and Arun Sarin, ex-chief executive officer of Vodafone. Its latest fundraising round was in July last year.