Indian alternative to Twitter, Koo raised US$ 30M in a funding round on 26 May 2021. Investors are now backing Koo at a time when tension is brewing between the social media giants like Twitter and the Indian Govt over new Media policies.
Investors: The funding round was led by Tiger Global Management. Other participants included Mirae Asset, IIFL’s venture capital fund and existing investors 3one4 Capital, Blume Ventures and Accel. The Bangalore-based startup is now valued at over US$ 100 million, up from about US$ 25 million in February.
Purpose of the funding: The funds raised will be utilized towards strengthening the startup’s engineering, product and community efforts across all Indian languages at Koo.
About Koo
Founded in 2020 by Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka, the Koo app allows users to publish posts in English and half a dozen Indian languages such as Hindi, Bengali, Telugu etc. It operates as a microblogging app, allowing users to connect, comment and engage in posts. Its interface, logo, and social sharing mechanism are similar to those of Twitter.
Koo suddenly became popular recently after the San Francisco-headquartered social media giant Twitter refused to follow the Govt. of India’s order to block a few accounts that criticized New Delhi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Koo has several prominent government officials on its platform, including India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar, Union Cabinet Minister Smriti Irani, Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and many celebrities as well.
The startup’s mission is to build a social network for India and not just a fraction of it. It competes with Twitter as it is the most popular among users in urban cities in India. Koo is also one of the few social networks that have complied with India’s new IT rules that allow the Centre to take down posts it deems offensive.
Koo is the latest investment from Tiger Global in India this year. The hedge fund has backed over 20 Indian unicorns. It has rather become of the most prolific investors in Indian startups in recent months.
What the founders have to say: “We have aggressive plans to grow into one of the world’s largest social media platforms in the next few years. Every Indian is cheering for us to get there soon. Tiger Global is the right partner to have onboard to realise this dream.” — Aprameya Radhakrishna, co-Founder and CEO of Koo.
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