Twitter competitor Koo to shut down due to financial problem

Social media app Koo is being shut down. This Indian startup was started about four years ago to compete with the micro blogging platform Twitter (now called X). It will be closed after talks regarding acquisition with big internet and media companies fail.

Koo was started by Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka. It provided services to the users in the languages ​​of the country. Aprameya and Bidawatka said in a post on LinkedIn on Wednesday that after failed acquisition talks with some big internet companies, business groups and media companies, Koo Will be closed. A TechCrunch report in February claimed that Koo was in talks with Bengaluru-based news and content aggregator Dailyhunt to buy Koo.

Its founders have said that some companies had changed their priorities when the Koo acquisition deal was in the final stages and most of these companies did not want to deal with user generated content. The app had approximately one crore monthly active users and approximately 21 lakh daily active users at its peak. Koo’s popularity grew rapidly when there was tension between the central government and Twitter over requests to remove content. About two years ago Koo had crossed the figure of five crore users. It had set a target of surpassing the user base of Twitter within a year. The number of Twitter users has increased rapidly in the last few years.

A major difficulty for this startup was the lack of funding. Aprameya said Koo needed long-term funding to increase the number of users before it could achieve revenue. He said that the high cost of running this social media app is a major reason behind the decision to close Koo. Koo made its algorithm public about two years ago. Its founders say that they are considering continuing this service to enable social media in indigenous languages.