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Sequoia-backed NewsHunt acquires Indian e-commerce portal

  • Holden Mann
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Ver Se Innovation, the owner of Indian news aggregation app NewsHunt, has acquired Rocket Science Innovation, parent of online price comparison and recommendation platform BuyT for an undisclosed amount.

The purchase is a continuation of NewsHunt's bid to integrate e-commerce into its platform, according to YourStory. Currently the company primarily offers news articles delivered to Indian users in their local languages rather than English. Two years ago it launched the online payment platform iPayy, and earlier this year it opened an ebook marketplace.

NewsHunt launched in 2009 and was acquired by Ver Se in 2012. It offers news content in 12 languages and claims to have over 20 million active monthly users and 2.5 billion page views per month. The ebook marketplace has seen over 15 million downloads in the past six months, and the iPayy platform is used by 700 online merchants.

Ver Se raised INR1 billion ($16.4 million) in Series B funding last year, in a round led by Sequoia Capital with participation by Matrix Partners and Omidyar Network. The three investors also participated in the company's Series C round earlier this year, along with Falcon Edge Capital; Matrix had also provided Ver Se with INR200 million in Series A funding in 2009.

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