Koo shuts down after four years amidst failed acquisition talks

Koo, the Indian social media startup launched in 2020 as a competitor to Twitter (now X), is shutting down.

Co-founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka announced the closure after acquisition negotiations with several larger internet companies, conglomerates, and media houses fell through.

At its peak, Koo had about 10 million monthly active users and 2.1 million daily active users.

In a LinkedIn post on Wednesday, Koo’s founders revealed that the company would cease operations following unsuccessful acquisition discussions.

A report from TechCrunch in February suggested that Koo was in talks to be acquired by Bangalore-based news and content aggregator Dailyhunt. The founders mentioned that a few potential acquirers shifted priorities just before finalizing deals, and most were reluctant to handle user-generated content and the unpredictable nature of a social media platform.

Koo gained popularity, particularly when endorsed and adopted by the Indian government during its disputes with Twitter over content takedown requests. By 2022, Koo had surpassed 50 million users and aimed to overtake Twitter's user base in India within a year.

However, the company’s growth was hindered by a prolonged funding winter affecting startups globally. Radhakrishna noted that Koo required five to six years of "aggressive, long-term, and patient capital" to scale up its user base significantly before becoming profitable.

The high costs of running the social media platform were a primary factor in the decision to shut down Koo. In 2022, Koo made its algorithms public, and now the founders are considering turning the service into "a digital public good to enable social conversations in native languages worldwide."