Indian TikTok clone gets Google, Microsoft backing in $100 mln fund raise
22/12/2020 05:52
BENGALURU, Dec 22 (Reuters) - The parent of a TikTok copycat
from India has raised more than $100 million from investors
including Alphabet Inc's GOOGL.O Google and Microsoft
MSFT.O , months after the Chinese-owned short-video app was
banned in the country.
The app, Josh, is one of several home-grown short-video
platforms that have sprung up since India blocked the wildly
popular TikTok in June amidst a border crisis with China,
attracting global investor interest in applications filling the
gap. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2E731L
Bengaluru-based VerSe Innovation, which owns Josh, is valued
at more than $1 billion following the investment, it said in a
statement.
AlphaWave, a part of global asset manager Falcon Edge
Capital, also invested in VerSe, as did existing investors
Sofina Group and Lupa Systems, VerSe said, adding that it would
use the funds to scale up Josh.
VerSe also owns news and content platform Dailyhunt, which
offers content in multiple Indian languages.
In September, Indian content-sharing platform ShareChat
raised $40 million from investors including Twitter Inc TWTR.N
and Lightspeed Ventures, in an effort to drive growth for its
new short-video app Moj. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N2GK3KI
Both Josh and Moj have been installed on more than 50
million devices each, according to data from Google's Play
Store.
Google also separately announced the investment in VerSe,
adding it had also invested in mobile advertising technology
firm InMobi, which runs lock-screen content app Glance and
short-video app Roposo.
Google, which had set aside $10 billion for digital
investments in India, did not provide any financial details for
the investments.
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi
Aich)
((saisachin.r@tr.com; +91 80 6182 2754; Twitter: @sachinr27;))