Koo Dismisses 30% Workforce Over Changing Gobal Sentiments

Microblogging site Koo, the Indian equivalent of Twitter, has dismissed 30% of its workforce in recent months as the firm struggles to make ends meet. The social media platform, considered as India's answer to Twitter's monopoly, soared in popularity after Twitter's spat with the government.

Koo was launched in March 2020 as a multi-lingual, micro-blogging platform for Indians to express in their mother tongue and connect with their linguistic and cultural communities. It has gained popularity as a homegrown alternative to Twitter, a direct rival when the latter underwent massive changes after Elon Musk's takeover in November last year.

Twitter's spat with the government over the content on its platform has benefited Koo the most as many netizens, including government officials, cricket stars and Bollywood celebrities flocked to it as an alternative.

Now, after three years Koo has laid off one-third of its about 260 workers as the "global sentiment right now is more focused on efficiency than growth and businesses need to work toward proving unit economics," a spokesperson for the company, backed by Tiger Global, said in a reply to queries by Bloomberg News.

The startup has been supportive to the dismissed employees through compensation packages, extended health benefits and aided in finding new jobs, the spokesperson said.

However, currently Koo struggles to access cash during a time when the global rout is facing depressed investment activity that has slashed billions from valuations of once high-flying startups. Despite the challenges, the three-year old start up intends to continue operating and will focus solely on maximising efficiency.

Koo, with more than 60 million downloads, is "well capitalised," and the company is striving to become profitable with monetisation experiments, co-founder Mayank Bidawatka said in an interview. It also has one of the highest revenue per user among other social media companies currently, he added.

As per the media sources, Koo had reached a major milestone of 15 million download, with 20 months of it launch. The first 10 million downloads happened in about a year and half, while the next five million users joined the platform in a quarter.

Accel and Kalaari Capital are two of its investors who also had raised funds at a valuation of $273 million last year, according to research firm Tracxn.