by VerSe Innovation (Dailyhunt)
Josh is a social video app built by VerSe Innovation Private Limited, the Bengaluru-based company behind Dailyhunt. It launched in June 2020, immediately after India banned TikTok, and became one of the country's most-downloaded entertainment apps, passing 100 million Play Store downloads by 2021 and reaching roughly 150 million monthly active users at its 2022 peak. The Play listing now shows 290M+ cumulative installs and a 3.9-star rating from 982,753 ratings on the Indian Play Store. **Read the peak numbers as history, not current scale.** An earlier version of this page led with '150M MAU' as though it described Josh today. It does not. Inc42's reporting tracked monthly downloads falling about 80% and monthly active users falling more than half — roughly 20 million to 9.4 million — between July 2023 and July 2024, as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts absorbed the mainstream short-video audience. Those figures are themselves from 2024, and VerSe does not publish regular Josh-only metrics, so treat any 'Josh has X million users' claim as undated unless it names a source. **What the app leads with now is not short video.** Both the Google Play and App Store listings are titled 'Josh - Live Calls & Chat'. The features up front are paid one-to-one live calls (reported from around ₹14 per minute), a creator-chat product called DreamChat, and short dramas. Reporting from late 2024 framed live and commerce features as additions to the short-video base rather than a wholesale replacement, so this is a shift in emphasis rather than a clean product swap — but describing Josh in 2026 as simply a TikTok-style app is stale. **The parent company is under pressure.** VerSe raised over $1.7 billion cumulatively and was valued around $5 billion in 2022, and this page previously listed 'well-funded parent company' as a strength. That is no longer safe: VerSe laid off roughly 350 people, about 30% of its workforce, in May 2025 in an AI-focused restructuring, and trade press reports Josh consumed most of the group's capital while contributing a small share of revenue. Josh is still maintained — the listing was updated in April 2026 — with no shutdown announced. **One contested allegation.** In 2025 Inc42 reported that its journalists tested Josh's paid call feature and were connected largely to women who spoke flirtatiously and asked for sensitive information, citing insiders alleging a quiet move toward adult content. Josh denied this, calling itself a '100% brand-safe platform, with no live video or tipping features'. We have not verified either side and present it as disputed. Best suited to vernacular viewers in Tier 2 and Tier 3 India who want Josh's live-call format. Creators chasing reach will find Reels and Shorts substantially larger.
Information updated 1 years ago
VerSe Innovation
3.9/5 on Google Play Store, India (982,753 ratings, verified 2026-08-30) · Last verified 2026-08-30
Josh is Indian. It is built and operated by VerSe Innovation Private Limited, headquartered in Bengaluru — the same company behind the Dailyhunt news aggregator. VerSe was founded by Virendra Gupta, with Umang Bedi and Virendra Gupta as the public faces of the group, and has raised more than $1.7 billion cumulatively from investors including Google, Microsoft, Qatar Investment Authority and Sofina, reaching a roughly $5 billion valuation in 2022. The question is asked often because Josh launched in June 2020 in the immediate aftermath of India's ban on Chinese apps and was positioned as a TikTok replacement — but there is no Chinese ownership.
Josh has not shut down, and it is still being updated — the Google Play listing was last refreshed in April 2026. But it has shrunk a great deal from its peak. Inc42's reporting tracked monthly downloads falling roughly 80% and monthly active users falling more than half between July 2023 and July 2024, as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts took the mainstream short-video audience. Parent company VerSe Innovation laid off about 350 employees, roughly 30% of its workforce, in May 2025 during an AI-focused restructuring, and trade press has reported that Josh absorbed most of the group's capital while contributing a small share of its revenue. So: alive and maintained, materially diminished, and worth watching rather than assuming permanence.
Josh began as a short-video app and still hosts short-form video, but that is no longer what it leads with. Both its Google Play and Apple App Store listings are now titled 'Josh - Live Calls & Chat'. The features the company puts front and centre are paid one-to-one live video calls, reported to start at around ₹14 per minute, a creator-chat product called DreamChat, and short dramas. Reporting from late 2024 described these as additions layered on top of the short-video base rather than a complete replacement, so the fair summary is a shift in emphasis: if you install Josh in 2026 expecting a pure TikTok-style feed, the app you get will not match that expectation.
The main routes today are the paid interaction features rather than a general creator fund. Creators can earn from paid one-to-one live calls, from DreamChat interactions, and from brand and live-commerce partnerships arranged through the platform. Historically Josh ran large creator incentive programmes during its growth phase, but Inc42 has reported that creator payouts were subsequently reduced, and a shrinking active user base means less organic reach to convert into earnings. If earning is your main goal, be realistic: Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts have far larger audiences and more established monetisation, and several creators have publicly moved for exactly that reason.
Josh is distributed through the official Google Play and Apple App Stores, and we found no evidence of malware or a data breach. There is one contested issue you should know about before using the paid-call feature. In 2025 Inc42 reported that its journalists tested Josh's paid calls and were connected largely to women who spoke in a flirtatious manner and asked for sensitive information, and cited insiders alleging a quiet move toward adult content to reduce churn. Josh denied this, describing itself as a '100% brand-safe platform, with no live video or tipping features'. We have not independently verified either account. Treat it as disputed, and apply the ordinary rule regardless: never share personal or financial details with someone on a paid call.
Deletion is handled inside the app. Open Josh, go to your profile, open the settings or menu section, and look for the account settings area, which contains the delete-account option; you will be asked to confirm and the removal is not reversible. Before you delete, withdraw any pending earnings balance, since a deleted account will not pay out. If you have any subscription billed through Google Play or the App Store rather than inside Josh, cancel it separately in your store subscription settings — deleting an in-app account does not stop store-level billing.
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Yes, Josh by VerSe Innovation (Dailyhunt) is an Indian alternative to TikTok. It offers similar functionality while being developed and maintained in India.Explore other Indian alternatives to TikTok →
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Yes, Josh by VerSe Innovation (Dailyhunt) is an Indian alternative to YouTube Shorts. It offers similar functionality while being developed and maintained in India.Explore other Indian alternatives to YouTube Shorts →
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