BENGALURU: The Indian parent of a TikTok copycat has raised more than $ 100 million from investors, including Alphabet Inc’s Google and Microsoft, months after the Chinese-owned short video app was banned in the country.
The app, Josh, is one of several homegrown short video platforms that have sprung up since the government blocked the popular TikTok in June amid a border crisis with China, drawing interest from global investors in apps that fill the market. empty.
Bengaluru-based VerSe Innovation, which owns Josh, is valued at more than $ 1 billion after 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 expand Josh.
VerSe also owns the Dailyhunt news and content platform, which offers content in various Indian languages.
In September, content-sharing platform ShareChat raised $ 40 million from investors like Twitter Inc and Lightspeed Ventures, in an effort to fuel growth of its new short video app Moj.
Both Josh and Moj have been installed on more than 50 million devices each, according to data from Google’s Play Store.
Separately, on Tuesday, ad tech company InMobi’s Glance, which runs a lock screen content app of the same name and a short video platform Roposo, said it had raised $ 145 million from Google and the existing investor. Mithril Capital.
Google set aside $ 10 billion earlier this year for digital investments in India.
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