Reality bites. So does the reality of artificial intelligence (AI). And, it seems to have bitten off 30% of the workforce at VerSe Innovation. The layoffs have not been to cut costs, but to shift the pivot from grey cells to black boxes.

As AI sweeps through the media and content landscape, there’s a visible rush among players to adapt to the evolving reality. The latest round of job cuts at VerSe in May this year was an impact of this rapid transformation.

For the parent of DailyHunt, bringing AI into its core was a desperate bid to monetise the venture, bring more advertisers, and mobilise its short video platform Josh.

A series of acquisitions made over the last few years weighed on the coffers of VerSe, which served telecom companies by sending out SMS alerts on jobs, property, matrimony, news and education to subscribers across India, Bangladesh and Africa, when Virendra Gupta rolled it out in 2007.

The company went on a buying spree when it entered the B2C game in 2011 with the acquisition of Eterno Infotech. All the six acquisitions made so far worked great until the GenAI wave disrupted the industry.

Once valued at $5 Bn, with backing from global marques like Google, Matrix Partners, and Sofina Ventures, VerSe last raised a venture debt of INR 50 Cr ($6.25 Mn) from Alteria Capital in February 2024.

Most of its over INR 14,195 Cr ($1.7 Bn) funding raised so far came during 2020 to 2022, when digital platforms were coming up as the next big thing for content and short-form videos, and a $176 Mn AI-led media market in India began expanding at a lightning speed to reach $3 Bn by 2032. The entire media and entertainment sector saw AI redefining content creation, distribution and monetisation that made it an INR 268,000 Cr (around $31.6 billion) industry in 2025.

With the AI disruption unfolding in full swing, content creation companies began looking at how it could improve their productivity and efficiency. VerSe focussed on automating several manual processes to enhance operational efficiency. It also reduced its EBITDA burn and shrank its losses by 51% to INR 710 Cr in FY24 by cutting down expenses.

The company has not yet shared the revenue breakdown of various verticals along with financials for FY25, but the management has stepped on the gas to raise funds for its subsidiaries, insiders told Inc42.

But how did VerSe fail to rhyme?

Josh Loses The Jazz: Revenue-Grosser Or Cash-Guzzler?

Josh was one of the biggest investment drivers for VerSe from 2020 to 2022, when India slapped the ban on TikTok, and claimed to have 350 Mn monthly active users (MAUs).

The excitement, however, fizzled out by 2024. It suffered a staggering downfall in MAUs and downloads following an exodus of influencers from the platform because of poor content moderation and overall decline in the user experience. Simmering competition from Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts too pushed Josh and its homegrown peers to the edge.

“Josh saw growth during elections when political parties would carry out campaigns because of its sizable Hindi-speaking users. There were also regional advertisement-linked revenues when brands would tie up with local influencers on this platform to reach the masses,” a former senior executive at Josh’s user engagement team said.

As the userbase shrank,........

© Inc42