Koo provides social networking services to its registered users. The users can create a profile, share opinions, pictures and use it as a micro blogging site. It is owned by the company Bombinate Technologies which is based, in Bengaluru. It is co-founded by two entrepreneurs named Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka in the early part of the year 2020.
KOO awards and accolades:
This application was selected, as one of the best applications among the other 7000 entries in the government’s Atmanirbhar App Innovation Challenge. Its logo is a picture of a yellow bird – Koo. The design of this logo with the bird was finalized on 14 May.
KOO in multiple languages:
This application was first launched, in the Kannada language. Going forward, it supported other native languages like Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati etc. It was also made user friendly in various foreign languages like French, German, English, Italian, Korean, Turkish, Thai, Spanish, and Vietnamese. The interface of the application of Koo is seen to be quite similar to Twitter. It has an interface of white and yellow colour. A yellow colour tick mark indicates the verification of the accounts of users at Koo. The download of this application was done by almost 2.6 million users in the year 2020 from the app stores in India. There was an increase in the installation of the application from February.
Challenges faced by KOO:
There were various struggles involved with the upliftment of Koo in terms of user base and security. An issue between the Government of India and Twitter occurred due to the spreading of some misguided information on Twitter. The orders were to block the accounts of politicians, activists, and journalists involved which was denied by Twitter initially, but then the majority was followed. This led to the shifting of many higher Government officials to the application of Koo. Another struggle involved with the application was the breach in cyber security which was blamed on the user accounts being hacked. Another issue with the application occurred with the problem in the name pronunciation of ‘Koo’ similar to ‘cu’ which is an inappropriate terminology in the Portuguese language. Another struggle occurred in Nigeria when a tweet from the Nigerian President was deleted on Twitter and the users shifted to Koo. But, soon the ban was lifted on Twitter, and the government officials stopped using the app, Koo.
KOO – Present Scenario:
The current value of the company is estimated to be around $275 million. The investors of the company are Blume Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Tiger Global, Accel Partners India, and T.V. Mohandas Pai’s (former Infosys CFO) 3one4 Capital. A funding of $30 million was raised, in a Series B Funding round on 26 May 2021. Sooner, the worth of Koo increased and reached more than $100 million. In a recent funding session on 25 November 2022, Koo raised $6 million led by Tiger Global and Accel Partners.
As of now, the closing of the financial year 2022 has witnessed a loss of growth and revenue even after the above funding sessions. There have been 30% layoffs in the workforce of Koo. There is no news of any merger or acquisition by Koo.
The way forward for KOO:
The organisation’s way forward is the call for a re calibration in terms of all the essential unit levels like marketing, technology,costing, revenue, and growth restoration. 2023 has not been kind in terms of funding. The logical way ahead for the organisation will be to team up with a partner with strong distribution network. Backed by this support, Koo will be able to easily pass the tough times. Its innovative offerings and millions of users including celebs and organisations will help its future stand. After all the company has the advantage of being the vernacular-language-first platform that is available in 10 Indian languages apart from various foreign languages too.
