Koo stops Kooing
What's happening — Weak growth, fierce competition, and lack of capital are compelling India's homegrown social media platform Koo to shut shop after a four-year run.
Between the lines: Launched in March 2020, Koo gained significant traction during a broad nationalist sentiment amidst the pandemic. Twitter's problems with censorship as well as conflicts with the Indian government presented an opportunity for Koo to grow.
Koo successfully converted initial hype to substance, raising big money from heavyweights such as Tiger Global, Accel, and Kalaari Capital. Across 7 funding rounds, the company raised over $66.7 million, with its last valuation reported at $275 million in 2022.
Koo by the numbers:
- Platform had 2.1 million daily active users at its peak in 2022
- 10 million monthly active users during height of popularity
- Supported 10+ Indian languages including Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, and Kannada
- Over 7,500 notable personalities, including politicians and celebrities, joined the platform
- Downloaded over 50 million times across app stores
The closure puts fresh light on India's prolonged funding winter in the tech sector, which saw startup funding drop by 72% in 2023 compared to 2022.
- Koo reported a net loss of ₹197.8 crore ($23.8 million) in FY22, with revenue of just ₹14.8 crore ($1.8 million)
- The platform had to lay off 30% of its workforce in 2023 due to funding constraints
The bottom line: Koo's closure underscores the challenges of building and sustaining a social media platform in India's competitive digital landscape. It also underlines how early the local market is in some areas, with successful exits few and far between.
