Koo App Founder Aprameya Radhakrishna recently announced in his LinkedIn post on Wednesday that his app is shutting down. The app, which was once rival to the Micro-Blogging platform X (Earlier Twitter), was forced to shut down after talks of merger or acquisition with several companies, including Dailyhunt, fell.
Founder 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 language 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.”
Backed by Accel and Tiger Global, the app was valued at $274 million after it raised approximately $66 million from investors. Before Koo, Radhakrishna had started another startup, TaxiForSure, which was later acquired by Ola in 2015.
Radhakrishna further mentioned, “Patient, long term capital is essential to build ambitious, world beating products from India – be it in social media, AI, space, EV or other futuristic categories. It will need a lot more capital when the space has a global giant already. And when one of these companies takes off, it can’t be left to the whims of the capital market, which goes up and down. It needs a strategic outlook to safeguard it and make it thrive. These aren’t to be looked at as profit churning machines in 2 years from launch. They need to be nurtured for a larger long term play. We would love to see that long term view for large bets from India.”
“The little yellow bird says its final goodbye…”, the post said in the end to bid farewell.