In a recent financial round, Tiger Global has invested $30 million in the Koo app. After this series B funding round, the Koo app valuation has reached $100 million. Recently, tension is rising between microblogging giant Twitter and the Indian government. It is Tiger Global’s strategic move to invest in the Indian platform at such a crucial time.
Koo App Valuation Surges to $100 Million
Koo app, known as desi Twitter of India, jas closed a crucial funding round led by Tiger Global. In the series B funding round of $30 million, existing investors Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures, and Dream Incubator were also actively involved. Koo app also welcomed two new investors in IIFL and Mirae Assets.
How will the company utilize the funding? What are Koo’s further plans? Answering these questions, the company said on Wednesday:
“The fresh round of funding will be utilized mainly to strengthen engineering, product, and community efforts across all Indian languages at Koo.”
Few months Koo became popular when Twitter did not follow Indian government direction to block certain accounts that were posting against the government.
Since Twitter did not follow the government’s instructions, the Koo app provided an alternative to Twitter. Few of the Indian government ministers also joined the Indian platform including Piyush Goyal. They also directed their followers to join Koo.
Koo app is similar to Twitter. But it also provides local language support. Due to the Twitter-Indian government controversy, it received plenty of traffic. A few months back, traffic was so high that it could handle the basic registration and asked the users to wait for some time.
IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also promoted the Koo app. He asked the Indian users to join Koo to avoid Twitter that is not following Indian laws. He spoke in support of the Koo app in the Indian parliament.
Koo Downloads and Recent Social Media Rules
Currently, Koo has finished 6 million downloads, as claimed by co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna. He also started Taxi for Sure startup. Later, he sold it to Ola. Twitter, the microblogging giant, has 17.5 million active users in India.
In February, India asked all social media portals to implement certain new rules within 3 months. Today is the last day to implement those rules. On Tuesday, the Koo app said:
“Koo’s Privacy Policy, Terms of Use and Community Guidelines reflect the requirements of the Rules as applicable to significant social media intermediaries.”
It further added:
“In addition, Koo has implemented a due diligence and grievance redressal mechanism supported by an Indian resident Chief Compliance Officer, Nodal Officer, and Grievance Officer.”
Yesterday, the news was trending related to Facebook and Twitter that they did not accept the new terms and conditions given by the Indian government. And both social medial portals will not work from 26 May 2021 onwards. Surprisingly, both are working.
Did they implement the new social media rules imposed by the Indian government? There is no official statement from Facebook, Twitter, or Indian Authorities.
