Dailyhunt

Dailyhunt (formerly Newshunt), is an Indian content and news aggregator application based in Bangalore, India that provides local language content in 14 Indian languages from over 3000+ content providers.[1] Dailyhunt's parent company is Verse Innovation, which was founded in 2007 by Virendra Gupta.[2] As of May 2020, Dailyhunt group had 330 million monthly active users.[3] Over a period of 6 years, the Dailyhunt platform has reached 250 million monthly active users who spend an average of 24 minutes per day on it.[4] Dailyhunt’s mission is to be ‘the Indic platform empowering a billion Indians to discover, consume and socialise with content that informs, enriches and entertains’.[5]

Dailyhunt
Original author(s)Virendra Gupta
Developer(s)Dailyhunt
Initial releaseSeptember 28, 2010 (2010-09-28)
Stable release(s)
Android16.2.7 / August 6, 2020 (2020-08-06)
iOS10.0.0 / August 5, 2020 (2020-08-05)
Operating system
Size69.5 MB (iOS)
14.30 MB (Android)
Available in14 languages
List of languages
Type
LicenseFreeware
Websitewww.dailyhunt.com

Understanding that India isn’t a predominantly English-speaking market, Dailyhunt aims at curating localised content for the people of India.[6] It has been predicted by Goldman Sachs Group Inc to become one of "Indian billion dollar babies".[7]

History

Dailyhunt was earlier called Newshunt, which was created in 2009 by two ex-Nokia employees Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni. Soon after, the platform gained momentum and prominence in India as an app on Symbian where it received 18 million monthly pageviews in two years. Later in 2011, Newshunt became available on the Android platform. It was by that time that Virendra Gupta, founder of Verse acquired the application.

Entrepreneur Virendra Gupta, better known as Viru, had started Verse in 2007 as a value-added service (VAS) company.[6] In 2011, he spotted Newshunt as a newly launched app and acquired it from its owners- Umesh and Chandrashekhar. Umesh became the CTO and stayed on to oversee its transition towards the smartphone era. Together, Virendra, Umesh, and the team catalyzed Dailyhunt’s explosion into a three-billion-pageviews heavyweight.[6]

In 2015, Viru renamed Newshunt as Dailyhunt since the name helped them expand their mission: To make it easier for people to enjoy best content, products and services in their language, on any device. In early 2018, Viru roped in Umang Bedi, former Managing Director of Facebook- India and South Asia to be the President of Dailyhunt and lead the business with him while focusing on making the benefits of the platform available to a larger audience. Later, the duo pivoted their aim to become India’s largest digital media business that would give consumers the ability to discover, consume, and socialize with content that is informative, entertaining, and engaging. An end of 2015 story reported Dailyhunt to be the largest Indian language distributor of e-books having 70,000 titles in ten languages.[8]

Dailyhunt is available on Android, IOS platforms and Microsoft Store[9]

Funding

In September 2014, Dailyhunt (then known as Newshunt) closed its Series B funding of INR 100 million from Sequoia Capital India.[10] The Series C funding round was led by Falcon Capital and was closed with $40 million in February 2015.[11] In October 2016, the company received its Series D funding of $25 million from ByteDance[12] and a Series E funding of $6.39 million from Falcon Edge Capital in September 2018.[13] Additionally, Dailyhunt raised $3 Mn (INR 21.75 Cr) in a Series F funding round from Stonebridge Capital in August 2019.[14] Other investors of Dailyhunt include Matrix Partners India, Omidyar Network, Goldman Sachs and Sofina.

Appointments

In February 2018, Umang Bedi, former Managing Director of Facebook- India and South Asia was appointed as the President of Dailyhunt.[15] Recently in 2020, Bedi was elevated to the position of Co-founder of Dailyhunt.

Tie-ups and partnerships

In May 2020, Snapdeal partnered with Dailyhunt to add news content on marketplace.[16]

In March 2019, Discovery Communications India, the factual entertainment network entered into a multi-year partnership with Dailyhunt to showcase short-form content.[17]

Advertising campaigns

Aur Kya Chal Raha Hai- Launched in October 2015, this digital campaign communicated about the rebranding exercise. It was in 2015 when Newshunt was renamed as Dailyhunt.[18]

News ka Daily Dose- Released on social media in September 2017, Dailyhunt’s News ka Daily Dose campaign showed how India reacts to news. The ad was targeted at the youth to help them get a better understanding of the content offered on the app.[19]

#HarBhashaEqual- Launched in August 2018, this highly innovative digital campaign highlighted our in-built bias against our vernacular languages and aimed at promoting language equality in India.[20]

#KhudKiSochBanao- Published on social media in March 2019 ahead of the General Elections, this film by Dailyhunt urges people to make their own opinions and not be parrots that repeat what's fed to them.[21]

#DailyhuntHaiNa- In August 2019, Dailyhunt announced its new multimedia campaign, ‘#DailyhuntHaiNa’ targeted at the millennials to get them hooked on to the unique benefits of Dailyhunt.[22]

Awards and honors

In November 2018, Virendra Gupta, Founder & CEO, Dailyhunt and Umang Bedi, President, Dailyhunt were honoured with the exchange4media Influencer of the Year Award.[23]

References
  1. "Snapdeal adds news to its platform with Dailyhunt partnership". Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
  2. "Verse Innovations | Crunchbase".
  3. RM, Rahul Karan Reddy & Armaan (July 2, 2020). "Save the list: Indian apps to replace the 59 banned Chinese ones". The Asian Age.
  4. "We solved ML for vernacular Indian languages early on: DailyHunt". www.forbesindia.com.
  5. "Our secret sauce is our ability to harness vernacular languages: Umang Bedi". Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
  6. "Tech in Asia - Connecting Asia's startup ecosystem". www.techinasia.com.
  7. "Goldman's biliion dollar babies". Bloomberg. 2015-08-20. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
  8. "E-bookish in Bhojpuri - Times of India". The Times of India.
  9. "Get Dailyhunt (Formerly NewsHunt) - Microsoft Store en-IN". Microsoft Store.
  10. "NewsHunt Raises INR 100 Cr From Sequoia Capital & Its Existing Investors". September 22, 2014.
  11. Chakraborty, Sayan (October 10, 2016). "DailyHunt in talks with investors to raise $40 million". Livemint.
  12. "News And Ebooks App DailyHunt Secures $25 Mn Funding". October 15, 2016.
  13. "Dailyhunt Secures $6.39 Mn In Series E From Falcon Edge". September 3, 2018.
  14. "Dailyhunt Secures Nearly $25 Mn Funding In Ongoing Series F Round". August 8, 2019.
  15. "Umang Bedi Joins Dailyhunt as President". Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
  16. "Snapdeal partners with Dailyhunt to add news content on marketplace". May 26, 2020 – via The Economic Times.
  18. Rishi, Bikramjit; Kacker, Archit; Hazra, Syamantak (December 1, 2019). "Rebranding of NewsHunt to Dailyhunt: Dilemma of Future Direction". Emerging Economies Cases Journal. 1 (1–2): 52–57. doi:10.1177/2516604219887634 – via SAGE Journals.
  19. "Dailyhunt rolls out campaign #NewsKaDailyDose to show how India reacts to news". www.bestmediaifo.com.
  20. Samosa, Social (August 9, 2018). "Dailyhunt launches #HarBhashaEqual to promote language equality in India".
  21. "Dailyhunt urges readers to not be parrots, form own opinions ahead of elections | The Work". Campaign India.
  22. "Dailyhunt launches quirky campaign targeting the youth". www.bestmediaifo.com.
  23. "exchange4media Influencer of the Year Award conferred upon Virendra Gupta and Umang Bedi". Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.