Social media platform Koo to shut down, say co-founders

The social media platform Koo, India’s Twitter rival, is shutting down as partnership deals did not materialise.

Confirming on LinkidIn on July 3, Koo co-founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka wrote, “Our partnership talks fell through and we will be discontinuing our service to the public. We explored partnerships with multiple larger internet companies, conglomerates, and media houses but these talks didn’t yield the outcome we wanted.”

“The little yellow bird says its final goodbye,” they added.

“A couple of them changed priority almost close to signing. While we would’ve liked to keep the app running, the cost of technology services to keep a social media app running is high and we’ve had to take this tough decision,” the co-founders said.

Reportedly, Koo was in talks with internet media startup Dailyhunt for a potential sale. However, the deal did not happen later. 

Koo hoped to attract people by providing an X-like platform where they could express themselves in numerous local languages. The business had also extended its eponymous software into Brazil.

But a prolonged funding winter, which forced startups globally to scale their revenue and improve their finances, “got the better of us,” Koo founders said.

Further in the post, the founders mentioned that “at our peak, we were about 2.1 million daily active users and around 10 million monthly active users, over 9000 VIPs, that included some of the most eminent personalities from various fields”.

“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,” they added.

The founders also mentioned that the mood of the market and the funding winter “got the better of us”.

Koo has secured more than $60 million in funding from prominent investors like Tiger Global and Accel