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News aggregator Dailyhunt’s parent VerSe Innovation plans to foray into the Middle East market by expanding its digital media operations in the region. Further, it plans to come up with a news aggregator platform for the targeted market. 

To carry forward this plan, VerSe will initially launch Dailyhunt in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait and later, expand to other countries including Iraq, Iran, Israel, and Egypt. Besides, Dailyhunt’s content will also be available in three languages –Hebrew, Farsi, and Arabic in the MENA region. 

In that region, Dailyhunt will be available on web, desktop and mobile web. Additionally, its app will be available on IOS and Android.

To lead Dailyhunt’s operations in the MENA region, VerSe has appointed Shekhar Iyer as the director and general manager of the company. He will be leading strategic and business development in the MENA region. 

Prior to this, Iyer has worked with Abu Dhabi Media (Radio Mirchi), Percept Gulf (MAME), Zee Entertainment, Indian Express, and Khaleej Times. 

To launch Dailyhunt in the MENA region, VerSe has employed over 5000 content partners that will cater to the UAE market. Besides, VerSe will also partner with several news publishers including MENA Newswire, Al Khaleej, The Brew, Chalk Media, Brandknew, KKompany, Mudgal Kreations, Buzzing, and Gulf Today, among others. 

Commenting on the global expansion, Umang Bedi, cofounder of VerSe Innovation said, “As a part of our global expansion strategy, we are excited to bring Dailyhunt to audiences in the Middle East Market. Dailyhunt has strived to deliver content that has informed and entertained audiences in different languages. There is a tremendous opportunity to tap into the unmet content needs of the Middle East market, given the rich linguistic diversity and an extensive news consumption behavior of the market.”

Founded in 2007 by Virendra Gupta, VerSe Innovation was initially a business-to-business (B2B) company that provided services to telecommunication companies. Earlier, it offered SMS alerts on employment opportunities, real estate properties, matrimony and education subscribers across Bangladesh, Africa and India. In 2011, it entered the business-to-consumer (B2C) market after acquiring Eterno Infotech, which used to run Newshunt. After four years of the acquisition, VerSe rebranded Newshunt to Dailyhunt. 

Recently, VerSe’s early investor ByteDance exited the company at a discount of 56% after selling its stake to Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) through a secondary deal.

In April, VerSe secured $805 Mn in a funding round from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (OTPPB), Luxor Capital, Sumeru Ventures, Sofina Group and Baillie Gifford. Following this round, its valuation grew to $5 Bn.

In the short video segment, VerSe competes with Moj, ShareChat, and Chingari whilst in the news aggregation segment, VerSe faces competition from the likes of InShorts and Feedly. 

According to a report, India’s online media segment was anticipated to grow over INR 30K Cr in 2021. The sector is expected to reach INR 53,700 Cr by 2024.

Hyderabad-based Way2News raising $16.75 Mn and Noida-based InShorts bagging around $100 Mn are some of the emerging players in the Indian news aggregation industry.