Koo, the Indian social media platform meant to be a homegrown alternative to Twitter, will be shutting down after a “prolonged funding winter,” founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka said in a LinkedIn post.
Koo aspired to be an alternative to Twitter so Indians could communicate in their native languages in an English-dominated social media landscape. However, the platform was seen as being closely aligned with India’s ruling BJP and its followers during a time when Twitter was being criticised by the government over its compliance policies.
In addition to this, a proposed sale deal with the digital media company Dailyhunt did not come together, TechCrunch reported.
Koo’s founders claimed that at its peak, the platform had 2.1 million daily active users, about 10 million monthly active users, and over 9,000 VIPs.
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“We were just months away from beating Twitter in India in 2022 and could have doubled down on that short term goal with capital behind us,” said the founders in their statement, adding, “A prolonged funding winter which hit us at our peak hurt our plans at the time and we had to tone down on our growth trajectory.”
Koo raised $30 million in a funding round led by Tiger Global, along with other investors. These included Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures, and Dream Incubator, according to Koo.
“We have aggressive plans to grow into one of the world’s largest social media platforms in the next few years. Every Indian is cheering for us to get there soon,” said Radhakrishna in 2021 at the time.
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