VerSe Innovation, the parent company of vernacular news aggregator Dailyhunt and short video entertainment app Josh, has managed to improve its revenue by 57% while controlling losses by 34% in the fiscal year 2022-23.
VerSe’s total revenue grew by 57% Y-o-Y to Rs 1,809 crore in FY23 from Rs 1,151 crore in FY22, according to the company’s annual financial statement reviewed by Entrackr. Its operating revenue grew by 51% to Rs 1,457 crore and the firm also made Rs 352 crore from non-operating activities.
VerSe also managed to control its expenditure by 34% to Rs 1,448 crore in FY23. This is excluding non-cash expenses.
As per the company, Dailyhunt clocked a revenue of over Rs 1,200 crore and was EBITDA positive in FY23 with the fiscal year exiting at 10% EBITDA. Josh began monetization in H2 FY23 and exited at an ARR of over Rs 300 crore and reduced burn at the same time.
On the costs side, cost of services accounted for 45% of the overall expenditure. These expenses increased by 19% to Rs 1,673 crore in FY23 from Rs 1,410 crore in FY22. The second largest expense item was business promotional expenses which accounted for 27% of the overall expenditure. As per our analysis, this reduced by 22% to Rs 997 crore in FY23 from Rs 1,284 crore in FY22.
Its employee benefit expenses, which accounted for 22% of the overall expenditure, grew on account of Rs 460 crore of ESOP cost (non-cash). This resulted in an 11% Y-o-Y growth in total employee benefit expenses from Rs 731 crore in FY22 to Rs 811 crore in FY23. VerSe’s significant control on expenses resulted in overall expenses remaining flat Y-o-Y despite a significant spike in revenue.
VerSe was valued at $5 billion after raising a $805 million round in April last year. The company laid off 150 employees or 5% of its workforce citing the current economic climate in November last.
As of FY22, Dailyhunt claims to have over 350 million users every month (MAU).
Dailyhunt competes with Inshorts in the news aggregation and hyper-local video business, whereas its short video app Josh competes with ShareChat’s Moj and MX TakaTak, YouTube Shorts and Instagram, among others.
