Decoding Dailyhunt’s latest funding round that made it a unicorn

Vernacular news aggregator Dailyhunt had recently announced its fresh funding round of $100 million that helped it join the coveted unicorn club. While the Bengaluru-based company hasn’t disclosed the details of the transaction yet, Fintrackr has accessed the regulatory filings to understand better.

Dailyhunt has allotted 30 equity shares and 421,894 Series H preference shares at a price per share of Rs 17,898.39 to raise an aggregate of Rs 755.16 crore.

Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave Incubation is the largest investor in Dailyhunt’s Series H round with an investment of Rs 369.6 crore followed by Google International which pumped in Rs 221.76 crore. Microsoft India, Lupa India System and Sofina Ventures also put in Rs 73.92 crore, Rs 41.76 crore and Rs 48.12 crore respectively.

According to Fintrackr’s calculations, Dailyhunt has reached an estimated valuation of Rs 7,415 crore or $1.01 billion.

Following the round, lead investor Alpha Wave now has a 6.32% equity stake in Dailyhunt whereas Google International has acquired 2.99%. Sofina Ventures now holds a 6.37% stake while Lupa India has increased its stake to  5.53% stake. Microsoft India has also acquired a 1% stake in the latest Series H round.

The new round would help the Bengaluru-based venture to bolster the scale of its short video entertainment product Josh. The company had launched Josh within weeks of the ban on TikTok in India. While Josh is growing at a fast pace and managed to amass 100 million downloads, Dailyhunt’s core news aggregation business has been gradually stagnating.

Analysts and observers used to believe that Josh is a sort of distraction for Dailyhunt. However, the company has managed to prove that it’s one of the formidable players in the space with its three-digit Series H round. The entry of Dailyhunt in the unicorn league is exciting news for the local startup ecosystem.