India's own Twitter rival Koo shuts down, founder says, 'built with a lot of heart'

India's own Twitter (now X) rival, Koo, is shutting down its operations after raising more than $50 million in funding from investors, including Accel, Mega Trust, 7Square Ventures, Dream Incubator, Tiger Global Management, Kalaari Capital, 3one4 Capital, among others. 

The closure was announced by founder Aprameya Radhakrishna in a LinkedIn post, marking the end of an ambitious venture that aimed to secure a place in the global social media landscape.

The decision was tough but necessary, as the founders failed to sell or merge the platform. 

Failed talks with DailyHunt

"Our partnership talks fell through, and we will be discontinuing our service to the public," the founders said in a note.

"We explored partnerships with multiple companies, but most of them didn't want to deal with user-generated content and the wild nature of a social media company," they said.

"A couple of them changed priority almost close to signing. While we would've liked to keep the app running, the cost of technology services to keep a social media app running is high and we've had to take this tough decision," they said.

Among the potential deals were discussions with DailyHunt, a prominent content aggregator. According to media reports, these negotiations fell through, leaving Koo with no viable path forward.

Why they started Koo?

Highlighting their vision, Mayank Bidawatka and Aprameya Radhakrishna said, "Koo has been built with a lot of heart. We saw a big gap between the languages the world speaks and the fact that most social products especially X/Twitter in India are English dominant. In a world where 80% of the population speaks a langauge other than English, this is a strong need. We wanted to democratize expression and enable a better way to connect people in their local languages. Most global products are dominated by Americans. We believe that India should have a place at the table."

"Koo could have easily scaled internationally anmd given India a global brand that was truly made in India. This dream will remain," they said.

Koo to share assets

According to the note shared by founders, Koo will share some of its assets with one with a vision for India's foray into social media.

"We will also evaluate making this into a digital public good to enable social conversations in native languages, around the world. This is very difficult and complicated tech and we've built it painstakingly in record time," the note reads.

"As of us, we are entrepreneurs at heart and you will see us back in the arena one way or another. Till then, thank you for your time, attention, good wishes and love."

"The little bird says its final goodbye," the founders added.