Koo, X’s competitor, closes its doors; here’s why

The social network Koo which emerged as a competitor of X then called Twitter which has been the subject of many jokes among Brazilians at the end of 2022, will close its doors. In recent months, the platform has been struggling to expand its user base and generate revenue — the service’s hope was to sell to startup Dailyhunt, but the deal fell through, ending the company’s chances.

In a post on LinkedIn, the social network’s founders, Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka, said that despite attempts to partner with larger companies, nothing has blossomed. On X, the company also made a farewell post.

Koo has raised over $60 million in funding, but it wasn’t enough to keep the business afloat. Long-term investment would be needed to make the company profitable, the founders said.

Koo gave users the opportunity to express themselves in a similar way to that provided by X. Thus, it was possible to publish photos and GIFs, repost YouTube videos, take polls and record audio, as well as like posts, comment and republish third-party content.

“What’s on your mind?” the platform asked, inviting users to post their thoughts in the same way that X does. The company was openly inspired by Twitter, both in its microblogging style and in its symbol, which is also a bird — albeit a yellow one.

The platform gained popularity in India during a time of tension between Twitter and the Indian government, when the social network defied requests to remove content. At the time, Koo took the opportunity to position itself as a more compliant alternative, committing to local regulations. This ended up attracting users to the platform.

Koo was a success in Brazil

The app was also launched in Brazil, when in 2022 it became known to Brazilians who were looking for another social media option after Elon Musk bought Twitter. In November of that year, the company announced that it had reached the mark of 2 million accounts opened in Brazil — at the time, the company went viral when it showed that it was hiring to handle the high flow of Brazilian accounts.

The company’s viral growth has led it to consider opening an office in the country in 2022. “We will hire Brazilians for our operations in Brazil because we strongly believe in local employment,” Mayank Bidawatka said at the time.

The following year, given the decline in the number of people using the platform, the Indian company resorted to a rewards program that offered “coins” to those who accessed the service, so that the so-called “Koopons” could be earned by those who browsed the app for at least ten minutes a day. From July 2022 to January 2023, 5 million users were lost by the social network, which has continued to decline in popularity in recent months.

“While we would like to keep the app running, the cost of technology services to keep a social media app running is high, and we had to make this difficult decision,” Aprameya Radhakrishna said on LinkedIn.

In the post, the founders of Koo say that they will not stop being entrepreneurs. “As for us, we are entrepreneurs at heart, and you will see us back in the arena in one form or another. Until then, thank you for your time, attention, good wishes and love. The little yellow bird says its final goodbye.”