Dailyhunt's parent VerSe's group CFO resigns amid other exits in finance team
Mumbai: Sandip Basu, the group chief financial officer (CFO) of Dailyhunt's parent company, VerSe Innovation, resigned earlier this month due to personal health reasons, two sources familiar with the matter told
Mint
.
'The exit is due to health reasons and the company has begun searching for his replacement," one of the two people cited above said. VerSe's finance team has also seen other exits with Rajiv Sikaria and Piyush Agarwal stepping down over the last year, according to the second person.
These exits come at a pivotal time for VerSe, which has been actively acquiring companies, facing delays in financial audits, and preparing for an initial public offering (IPO).
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A VerSe spokesperson confirmed Basu's resignation, and also downplayed the impact of the other departures, saying that they were not at a senior level and were typical for a finance team of 85–100 members.
Sikaria, who was responsible for mergers and acquisitions and served as CFO for BMEG and BMEG Mena, resigned in July last year, according to his LinkedIn profile. Agarwal, who headed corporate finance, accounting, taxation, M&A, treasury, and investor relations, also departed recently.
Basu's resignation comes more than three years after he joined VerSe as group CFO, tasked with overseeing the company's internal systems and processes. He previously held senior roles at Bharti Telecom Ltd, BPL Mobile Group, XCEL Telecom, and Loop Mob.
Emails sent to Sikaria and Agarwal did not receive a response by the time of publication, and emails to Basu bounced back.
In 2018, Bedi joined forces with VerSe's founder Virendra Kumar Gupta as co-founder of Dailyhunt. The parent company was established in 2007. The platform targets affluent English speaking individuals in tier 1 cities as well as the mass affluent, educated audience in tier 2 cities who prefer local language content.
In the past year, VerSe has aggressively expanded, acquiring a majority stake in India-focused digital marketing agency Valueleaf Group in August 2024, shortly after its largest deal to date—buying US-based subscription service Magzter in April 2024 for an undisclosed sum.
VerSe's co-founder, Umang Bedi, told
Mint
last year that the company is 'acquisition-hungry," seeking to broaden its user base, explore monetization opportunities, and diversify content offerings.
The company plans to fund these
acquisitions
through a combination of cash and stock. Over the past five years, VerSe has acquired the social media app GolBol, photo-video sharing app Vebbler, AI solutions provider Cognirel, and online news platform Local Play, according to data from Tracxn. It has spent under $100 million on each acquisition.
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As VerSe prepares for its IPO, the search for a new CFO has become urgent. While Bedi did not disclose a timeline for the listing, he expects the company to break even in the next three to four months and to turn profitable in FY26. Bedi anticipates stronger revenues driven by AI-powered innovations, deeper monetization across platforms—including Dailyhunt, Josh, NextVerSe AI, and VerSe Collab—and a recovery in the advertising market.
For FY24, VerSe's revenue declined to
₹
1,261 crore, down from
₹
1,356 crore in FY23. However, its Ebitda burn, which excludes non-cash expenses, narrowed to
₹
710 crore, compared to
₹
1,448 crore the previous year.
The company has forecast a 75% revenue growth in FY25 and expects to reduce its burn by 30–40% through aggressive cuts in marketing expenses and integration of acquisitions. It has yet to file its audited results for FY24.
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₹
500 cr IPO
VerSe raised $805 million at a $5 billion valuation in April 2022, with investors including Goldman Sachs, Falcon Edge Capital, Sequoia Capital India, Omidyar Network India, and Matrix Partners. The company has no immediate plans to raise further capital.
In India's short-video space, VerSe's Josh competes with Mohalla Tech's Moj and ShareChat, both of which gained traction after TikTok was banned in India in 2020.
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