Dailyhunt’s parent company VerSe Innovation takes over Magzter

The parent company of Dailyhunt and short-video platform Josh, VerSe Innovation has taken over New York-based digital magazine store Magzter.

Magzter was founded in 2011. It is a cross-platform, self-service, global digital newsstand with a library of over 8,500 premium magazines and newspapers.

financial details of the deal remain undisclosed. This deal will mark Dailyhunt’s entry into premium content.

As per news source, Umang Bedi said that the deal is a cash-and-stock transaction. He also said that the company has come up with Dailyhunt Premium which is a subscription-based offering. It will provide users access to premium content from international publishers in over 60 languages from Magzter as well as make the app ads-free for a paying user.

“We're doing 100% acquisition of a US-based company, which will run as a subsidiary of VerSe, with both founders retained… The thinking is similar to how Facebook and Instagram came together. Look at the valuation of Facebook back then in 2012 and look at the valuation of Instagram. One plus one put together a combined new valuation of the company,” Bedi added.

The company was founded by former Facebook India managing director Bedi and Virendra Gupta.

Publications available on Magzter include Time, Newsweek, Fortune, The Economist, Forbes, Reader’s Digest, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Maxim, Elle, Vanity Fair, New Yorker and Bazaar across domestic and international editions.

At present in India a three-year subscription of Magzter retails is available at an offer price of Rs 3,999. The subscription allows users to access over 8,500 magazines. In the first years users can access all the content but from second year onwards the access is limited to five magazines and newspapers each month.

Magzter has more than 1.1 million active paying subscribers only from India and globally it exceeds 87 million since inception. Dailyhunt, VerSe’s mainstay business, serves over 350 million monthly active users with the time spent per daily active user at 30 minutes.

“This partnership opens up new avenues for delivering high-quality content experiences to users across India, further strengthening our goal of providing unparalleled digital reading experiences to our readers,” Girish Ramdas and Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan, Magzter co founders, said in a joint statement.

deal will be closed by April 30 and after which Magzter’s 75 employees will be fully integrated with VerSe’s 1,200-strong workforce, Bedi added. Also, Magzter investor Kalaari Capital will be exiting. Its only other investor, Singapore Press Holdings will continue to hold its stake.