Homegrown Twitter, Koo App has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global. IIFL and Mirae Assets were the two other investors. Other existing investors – Kalaari Capital, 3one4 Capital, Accel Partners, Blume Ventures, and Dream Incubator were also present in the funding round.
The company aims to utilise the proceeds to strengthen engineering, product and community efforts across all Indian vernacular languages at Koo.
Koo was the brainchild of serial entrepreneurs Aprameya Radhakrishna, founder of Taxi For Sure, and Mayank Bidawatka, Media Ant and Goodbox founder.
“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 realize this dream. The fresh round of funding will be utilized mainly to strengthen engineering, product and community efforts across all Indian languages at Koo,” said Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-Founder and CEO of Koo.
On May 22, Koo agreed to meet the compliance requirements as per the new guidelines for digital platforms ahead of the deadline set later in the month.
Founded in March 2020, this micro-blogging platform has been in the headlines over the last few months. It is at advantage of the increased friction between the Indian government and Twitter reported in the previous months.
There is space for a neutral or right-leaning social media network. People want to sometimes have simple interactions within their circles and echo chambers. Koo can provide that. And the founders have shown the ability to build, so investors will always be interested,” said an investor tracking the company, requesting anonymity.
Chinese investor Shunwei Capital bid adieu to its business relationship with Bombinate Technologies, the company that owns Koo, in April, and other Indian individuals bought that exiting minority stake in the company.