Koo social media platform closes.
Credit: Reuters File Photo
After several attempts to secure investments failed, Koo co-founders Mayank Bidawatka and Aprameya Radhakrishna have decided to shut the multi-lingual social media platform.
"Here's the final update from our end. Our partnership talks fell through and we will be discountinuing our service (Koo platform) to the public. We explored partnerships with multiple larger internet companies, conglomerates and media houses but talks didn't yield the outcome we wanted," Bidawatka and Radhakrishna said in the joint statement on LinkedIn.
Last time, Koo had reportedly raised about $70 million (Rs 585 crore) in funding and was valued at $270 million (Rs 2,255 crore).
Founded in 2020, the social media platform needed another five-six years of aggressive, long term and patient capital to make it a profitable business, the co-founders noted.
At its peak, Koo had more than 2.1 million daily active users close to 10 million monthly active users. It had more than 9,000 celebrities including union ministries' accounts.
Koo used to have a 10-per-cent like ratio, almost seven to ten times the ratio on Twitter (now X), making the Indian social media platform more favourable for local creators.
In 2022, within 48 hours of launch, Koo had logged more than one million users in Brazil.
"We were just months away from beating Twitter(now X) in India in 2022 and could have doubled down on that short term goal with capital behind us. 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," said the company founders.
"As for us, we are entrepreneurs at heart and you will see us back in the arena one way or another. Till then, thank you for your time, attention, good wishes and love. The little yellow bird says its final good bye...", the Koo founders signed off.
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