Amid Twitter ban row, Koo, pegged as an Indian alternative to Twitter, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global with existing investors also participating in the latest round. With this investment, the company's valuation rises five-fold to $100 million in three months.
Existing investors Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and Dream Incubator also took part in the round. IIFL and Mirae Assets are other new investors who have come on board the cap table with this round, Koo said in a statement. This funding will be utilized to strengthen engineering, product and community efforts across all Indian languages at Koo.
Co-Founder and CEO of Koo, Aprameya Radhakrishna stated, "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 realise this dream."
To date, Tiger Global has backed 20 unicorns from India including Flipkart, Ola, Razorpay, Cred, etc. and has been one of the leading investors in the Indian startup ecosystem.
Closing of deal
The fundraising deal is closed at a time when Indian authorities are turning the heat on Twitter. Earlier this week, Delhi Police visited Twitter India offices in New Delhi and Gurugram to serve notice in person in connection with their probe into the 'Congress Toolkit' case after finding the company's reply ambiguous. The action by Delhi Police is the latest addition to a series of flashpoints over the last six months between the Centre and Twitter.
Explained: What is the Toolkit case?
About Koo App
It is a microblogging platform that rose to prominence due to its Twitter-like experience but in local languages. The app has garnered around 60 lakh downloads within a year. The app was co-founded by entrepreneurs Aparmeya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidwatka.
The app came into the spotlight when it won the Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge 2020 along with other homegrown apps such as Zoho and Chingari.
Languages supported
The app supports the following languages:
1- Hindi
2- Telugu
3- Kannada
4- Bengali
5- Tamil
6- Malayalam
7- Gujarati
8- Marathi
9- Punjabi
10- Oriya
11- Assamese
Talk to Type feature
Earlier this month, the company launched the 'Talk to Type' feature to help users speak and type messages without using the keyboard in regional languages, apart from English.
Compliance with the new IT Rules
Ahead of the 25 May 2021 deadline, Koo has adhered to the compliance requirements of the new IT Rules put forth by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
Advisory Council
As per media reports, Koo will be soon setting up an advisory council to make quick decisions on certain posts and content that might be in the grey zone. The council is expected to consist of 3-5 members in the beginning.
"Out of 100 users, it would perhaps be only 2-3 people who will create something that could be objectionable. We don’t want to be the judge, but there will be instances which need quick solutions in the interim," said Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-Founder and CEO of Koo.
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