Dailyhunt Success Story - How it Brings Daily News and Content in Local Indian Languages?

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We no longer have to wait for the newspapers to get the latest news, nor do we have to wait till we reach home and switch on the TV to know the breaking news. With mobile phones, fast and cheap internet services, and online news aggregators accessing news, the latest information and updates are now a breeze. However, getting local news updates every day in regional languages was still far from reality in India until 2010, when Dailyhunt was founded.

The Indian content and news aggregating app, founded in 2009, is a platform that delivers local news from all corners of the country to the Indian masses in their regional languages. Headquartered in Bengaluru, Dailyhunt aggregates and presents news and daily local language content in 14+ regional languages "that informs, enriches, and entertains" Indian audiences.

Initially started as Newshunt by Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni in 2009, the Symbian-turned-Android application was acquired by Virendra Gupta in 2011. It was Viru who renamed the application to Dailyhunt, the name it is now known as, in 2015. Today Dailyhunt procures content from over 1000 publishers and is gaining much popularity due to its Indian regional language content

Dailyhunt turned into India's first tech unicorn focused on local languages on December 21, 2020, after its parent organization, VerSe Innovation, received funding of over $100 million led by Google, Microsoft, and Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave Incubation.

StartupTalky covers the success story of Dailyhunt in this post. Know all about Dailhunt, how the platform works, its business model, revenue model, funding, founder/owner, mergers and acquisitions, and more.

Dailyhunt: Company Highlights

Dailyhunt - Industry | The Media and Entertainment Sector in India
Dailyhunt - About and How it Works
Dailyhunt - Founders and Team
Dailyhunt - Startup Story | How was Dailyhunt Started?
Dailyhunt - Name and Logo
Dailyhunt - Business Model and Revenue Model
Dailyhunt - Funding and Investors
Dailyhunt - Growth
Dailyhunt - Products and Services
Dailyhunt - Partnership
Dailyhunt - Investment
Dailyhunt - Mergers & Acquisitions
Dailyhunt - Competitors
Dailyhunt - Future Plans

Dailyhunt - Industry | The Media and Entertainment Sector in India

According to the PwC report, India’s Media and Entertainment sector is fairly expected to touch $45.1 billion by 2021, expanding at a CAGR of over 10.5%. The report also states that the segment has undergone substantial progress since 2016, when its valuation stood at $27.3 billion.

Dailyhunt - About and How it Works

Dailyhunt is an Indian local news and content aggregator app that provides local language content in 14 Indian languages, which include major languages like Hindi, Kannada, and Marathi, to name a few, from over 3000+ content providers as of 2021.

It is one of the early entrants in the regional content space in the country. The interesting part is that the platform also offers short videos. This video content is sourced from organizations and stringers. Through its smart technology, the platform personalizes the content as per the users' requirements.

From the nation's biggest news source to hyperlocal correspondents, it curates news that you will surely love to watch. Almost 90% of the users use the platform in regional languages. It serves more than 350 million users a month, as per the reports for 2022. The unique proposition is that the users can browse the topics of their interest and also share news over different social media platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook, etc.

Dailyhunt Login

Dailyhunt login is not difficult. The login process for the Dailyhunt app is really easy because the local news aggregating platform appears as a website that is designed as a news portal for vernacular news. To login to the same, you simply need to go to www.direct.dailyhunt.in/log in, if you are using a browser or open the Dailyhunt app, create your username and password, and log in through the same credentials to enjoy your news updates right from the comfort of your home.

Dailyhunt - Founders and Team

Virendra Gupta is the founder and CEO of Dailyhunt; Umang Bedi is the co-founder; and Shailendra Sharma is the co-founder and SVP of Dailyhunt.

Virendra Gupta

Virendra Gupta has a B.E. degree in Electronics and Communication from Jodhpur's MBM Engineering College, after which he completed a Master's in Management from IIT Mumbai School of Management. Gupta started his career with OnMobile, where he was in marketing and alliances. After his brief stint with OnMobile, Virendra moved on to work with other companies, including Bharti Cellular and Trilogy, where he served in various key leadership positions. Virendra Gupta eventually founded Verse, a value-added service company, in 2007, which led him to acquire Newshunt (now Dailyhunt) in 2011, thereby becoming the founder and CEO of both companies.

Umang Bedi

Now known as the co-founder of Dailyhunt, Umang Bedi was a Pune University student from whom he completed a B.E. in electronics. He then pursued a general management program at Harvard Business School. Starting his career as the Managing Director of Intuit Inc., Umang has served as the Managing Director of a couple of other notable companies too, which include Adobe and Facebook, before being appointed as the President of Dailyhunt in 2018. Bedi was elevated to the designation of co-founder in 2020. Umang is also the Statutory Board Member of Goals 101.

Shailendra Sharma

Shailendra Sharma is the SVP of Engineering at Dailyhunt. Starting as a software trainee at Tata Research and Development Center, Sharma went on to work with Persistent Systems and Trilogy before co-founding DailyHunt with the other co-founders. Sharma is also regarded as the founder of 360fy Technologies. Shailendra Sharma is also a Pune University alumnus, from which he completed an MCA in Computer Science.

Virendra Gupta had initially started the Daily Hunt. Later, he roped in Umang Bedi and Shailendra Sharma to make the platform available to a larger audience.

Dailyhunt has an employee strength of between 501 and 1,000 employees.

Dailyhunt - Startup Story | How was Dailyhunt Started?

Dailyhunt, earlier known as Newshunt, was initially started by two ex-Nokia employees, Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni. It was created as a Symbian app in 2009. However, later in 2011, Newshunt was acquired by Virendra Gupta, who was then the founder of VerSe Innovation. He had started his venture, Versé Innovation Pvt Ltd., as a value-added service (VAS) company that provides SMS alerts on jobs, matrimony, property, news, and education to subscribers from around the country. In 2015, he renamed NewsHunt aailyHunt.

Dailyhunt - Name and Logo

The name Dailyhunt was chosen because the app allows users to get daily news when searching determinedly.

Dailyhunt - Business Model and Revenue Model

Being a news aggregating app is common, but Dailyhunt, most importantly, is a vernacular news aggregating app. There is a difference. In contrast to the other traditional news platforms, which target the top 10–15% of internet users, Dailyhunt targets the remaining percentage of the audience with its local language contents.

Dailyhunt is free for users who want to read the news and other relevant content from the app. It generates revenue from:

1. Impressions-Based (News): tie-ups with large news media and publishing houses wherein Dailyhunt shares the advertising revenue on the news screens with these players.
2. Transactions-Based (Books, Magazines, and Singles): tie-ups with book and magazine publishers, wherein the platform acts as a distributor for these books, collects the revenue from the users, and shares it with the publishers, who in turn may share it with the authors.
3. In-App Advertisements: Dailyhunt also earns from the advertisements of the companies and startups that feature on the app.

Dailyhunt - Funding and Investors

Dailyhunt has witnessed more than $430 million in funding over 14+ funding rounds from a range of investors, including Qatar Investment, Falcon Edge, Google, Microsoft, ByteDance, Goldman Sachs, and others.

Dailyhunt and JJosh's parent, Verse Innovation, raised a relatively large funding round on April 6, 2022, which infused $805 million into the company, led by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), where CPP alone put $425 million worth of funds. As of the reports for 2022, the Daily Hunt parent is valued at around $5 billion.

Bytedance has reportedly exited Dailyhunt parent VerSe Innovation's cap table at a discount of 56% as of June 4, 2022. The exit of the Chinese investor was confirmed earlier in June 2022 by VerSe. With the exit of the Tiktok owner, Bytedance, VerSe Innovation has now proclaimed that they are one of the few unicorn companies in India with 0% Chinese holding.

Bytedance has reportedly sold its stake in VerSe with the help of a secondary deal to existing investors, including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

Dailyhunt - Growth

In July 2018, Dailyhunt added over 12 million net new monthly active users, and in August, it beat the previous month’s performance with the addition of 15 million new monthly active users. Total monthly users on all platforms (Dailyhunt and OneIndia) put together, when reported in September 2018, were 138 million+, of which Dailyhunt accounted for 100 million+. Moreover, the time spent per daily active user is over 27 minutes per person per day, as reported at the end of 2018.

Dailyhunt has grown to serve over 350 million users every month, and its short video platform, Josh, claims to grow its monthly active users (MAUs) to 139 million and its daily active users (DAUs) to 68 million as of January 20, 2022. The Verse Innovation news aggregating platform Dailyhunt has turned out to be one of the leading news-providing platforms and has grown 8X bigger than its nearest rival, InShorts.

Why are losses piling up?

Dailyhunt attained unicorn status after the Google-led fundraising round in December 2020, and the Indian content and news aggregator platform is aiming to scale new horizons with the Chinese apps not yet to be unbanned anytime soon.

The Indian content and news aggregator platform has reportedly increased its operating revenue in FY20, where its total collections amounted to Rs 310 crore, which improved by 95% from Rs 159.1 crore in FY19. However, the company has simultaneously witnessed a surge in its total expenditure, which included:

• Advertisement and promotional expenditure: This rose by 74% from Rs 214.6 crore in FY19 to Rs 373 crore in FY20.
• Commissions to selling agents: The company distributed commissions amounting to Rs 8.4 crore to their selling agents.
• Expenditure on employee benefits: This witnessed a rise of 36%, from Rs 114 crore in FY19 to Rs 155.2 crore in FY20.
• Training and recruiting expenses: additional amount of Rs 3 crore
• Miscellaneous expenses: This surged 54.4%, from Rs 81.6 crore in FY20 to Rs 126 crore in FY21.
• Legal and professional costs: Dailyhunt has to bear Rs 16.7 crore in the name of legal and other professional costs.

Going by the income-expenses of the company, Dailyhunt had to spend Rs 2.7 to earn a single rupee, which is a slight improvement from Rs 3 spent to gain Re 1, which the company exhibited at the end of the past financial year. The main reason for the losses that Dailyhunt is picking up is the rising costs of the company, which need to be curbed in the future. These expenses would continue to grow even in FY21 and FY22 due to Josh, the short-form video app launched by Dailyhunt, according to the experts. The reasons for the upcoming expenditures are mainly associated with the promotion and seamless integration of Josh, which is facing huge market competition from ShareChat's Moj, InMobi-owned Glance's Roposo, and MX's Takatak.

Financials

The parent business of Dailyhunt and Josh, VerSe Innovation, made a significant financial achievement in the fiscal year 2022-2023 (FY 2022-2023). From Rs. 1,151 crore in FY22, its total income increased by 57% year over year to reach Rs. 1,809 crore in FY23. With an additional Rs 352 crore coming from non-operating operations, the company's operating revenue increased by 51% to Rs 1,457 crore, showing another notable increase for the industry.

Expenses Breakdown

Dailyhunt total expenses rise from Rs 3,714 crore in FY22 to Rs 3,716 crore in FY23.

Below is the expense breakdown:

EBITDA

According to the company, Dailyhunt recorded more than Rs 1,200 crore in revenue and had an EBITDA margin of 10% at the end of FY23.

Dailyhunt - Products and Services

Newzly

A news-in-brief app for Android users called Newzly was introduced by Dailyhunt in January 2018. With material available in nine languages (English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, and Gujarati), the app's initial release gives a summary of hot news stories across a variety of genres, including regional, international, entertainment, business, sports, and technology.

Josh

Dailyhunt has launched the short video app Josh in 2020. Josh is Dailyhunt's homage to Bharat, praising its artistic beauty and diversity, according to Dailyhunt, which said it had gained amazing traction during the beta period.

Publicvibe

With the release of Publicvibe, a new app from Dailyhunt that solely offers hyperlocal video updates on crime, politics, social concerns, and local events, video has been elevated to a new level.

Dailyhunt - Partnership

Some of the prominent partnerships of Dailyhunt are:

Twitter

Twitter collaborated with Dailyhunt to bring Moments to the Indian vernacular news and content aggregating app, as per the reports on February 8, 2021. Dailyhunt currently has a dedicated section called "Twitter Moments," where users can find curated tweets containing news and other events.

Mzzalo

In December 2020, Dailyhunt announced its partnership with Mzaalo. This will allow Dailyhunt users to get access to Mzaalo's content and also earn a reward point. These points can later be redeemed to purchase products or services from brands in the Mzaalo app.

Mathrubhumi

Dailyhunt partnered with Mathrubhumi in January 2023. According to Dailyhunt, its users will now be able to read a wide range of content on the platform, including investigative stories, informational stories, entertainment news, and political stories. The partnership will also help Mathrubhumi by allowing it to showcase its content to a sizable portion of Dailyhunt's readers while also providing its devoted readership with digital support.

Research and Ranking

The Daily Hunt and Research & Ranking have joined forces in January 2023. By raising awareness of wealth development and financial planning, the cooperation, according to the corporation, wants to expand its reach throughout India.

Hindu Group

The Hindu Group, India's most reputable media organization, and Dailyhunt have partnered on February 16, 2023, to offer users even easier access to a wealth of in-depth information.

Dailyhunt - Investment

Dailyhunt has invested in one company to date:

Dailyhunt - Mergers & Acquisitions

• Dailyhunt's parent organization, VerSe Innovation, acquired India-based Vebbler, a community-focused application for sharing photos and videos, on March 10, 2021.
• On February 23, 2021, VerSe Innovation also acquired Bengaluru-based AI solutions provider Cognirel Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
• In June 2019, the startup acquired hyperlocal video content and news content application LocalPlay, which will help the site stream video content in smaller towns. This deal will also enable local businessmen to advertise on the platform to target consumers in their area.
• In July 2015, Dailyhunt acquired Buyt.In, a search engine that enables its users to discover, compare, and purchase products from a range of e-commerce portals.

The most prominent acquisitions of Dailyhunt are listed as:

Dailyhunt - Competitors

Though Dailyhunt was one of the early entrants in the market, today it faces strong competition in the market. There are a lot of applications with different USPs running for the first position in the market. Inshorts directly competes with Dailyhunt in the news aggregation space, along with the other applications of:

• Newsstand
• Business Insider
• FirstPost
• NDTV
• Dainik Bhaskar

On the other hand, in the short video application of Dailyhunt, Josh competes with:

• Moj by ShareChat
• MX TakaTak
• YouTube Shorts

Dailyhunt - Future Plans

Dailyhunt has spoken of its plans to reach 600 of the 725 districts in India from its presence in 400 districts, as per various reports in 2019.

“For the next 10 years, we are going to be all about Bharat or India that does not speak English to take to consumption in a big way with smartphones", says Virendra Gupta, founder and CEO of Dailyhunt.

With the market becoming more favorable to IT companies in recent years, Dailyhunt is preparing an initial public offering (IPO) over the next two to three years, according to a news report from 2022, a top executive revealed in an interview. The announcement of Dailyhunt's IPO comes at a time when many internet startups are considering the public markets as a means of funding and providing investors with exits.

FAQs

What is the Daily Hunt?

Dailyhunt is an Indian news and content aggregator app, which can also be termed a local news app that provides local language content in 14+ Indian languages from over 3000+ content providers.

Dailyhunt is from which country?

Dailyhunt originated in India. It previously had the Chinese Investor, ByteDance, in its cap table, who exited the company as of June 4, 2022.

Who is the DailyHunt app owner?

Dailyhunt's parent company is VerSe Innovation, which is owned by Virendra Gupta. He is the founder and CEO of DailyHunt.

Are NewsHunt and DailyHunt the same?

The Dailyhunt company, as it stands now, was originally rebranded as Newshunt. So, essentially, NewsHunt and DailyHunt are the same platforms.

What languages does Dailyhunt support?

Dailyhunt has content in 14+ Indian languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, English, Gujarati, Punjabi, Oriya, Bengali, Urdu, Nepali, and Bhojpuri.

What is the Daily Hunt valuation?

Dailyhunt is a unicorn and boasts a valuation of $5 million as of 2022.