India’s little yellow bird says final goodbye

• Platform was struggling to compete with larger players and was in need of a strategic partnership to propel its growth.

In a surprising turn of events, India’s micro-blogging platform Koo has made the decision to discontinue its services to the public following unsuccessful partnership talks.

The announcement was made by Koo founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka in a LinkedIn post, where they expressed their disappointment in the outcome of the discussions.

According to the founders, Koo had been in talks with several larger internet companies, conglomerates, and media houses in the hopes of forming a partnership.

However, these discussions did not yield the desired results, with many potential partners shying away from dealing with user-generated content and the unpredictable nature of a social media company. Some partners even changed their priorities at the last minute, leading to the collapse of the negotiations.

Faced significant challenges

Despite having secured over $60 million in funding from prominent investors like Tiger Global and Accel, Koo faced significant challenges in expanding its user base and generating revenue over the past year.

The platform was struggling to compete with larger players in the market and was in need of a strategic partnership to propel its growth.

In February, media firm Dailyhunt was reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Koo, but the deal did not materialize. At its peak, Koo had amassed around 2.1 million daily active users and 10 million monthly active users, including over 9000 VIPs from various fields.

The founders believed that they were on the cusp of overtaking Twitter in India in 2022 and were confident that with the right capital backing, they could have achieved this milestone.

However, the founders acknowledged that the prevailing market conditions and the funding winter had taken a toll on Koo’s prospects.

They admitted that the mood of the market had turned against them, making it difficult to secure the necessary resources to sustain their operations. Ultimately, the founders felt that it was in the best interest of Koo to discontinue its services rather than continue to struggle in a challenging environment.