Indian Twitter rival Koo shuts down

New Delhi: Indian social media app Koo, once seen as a rival to micro-blogging platform X, is shutting down, its founder Aprameya Radhakrishna said in a post on LinkedIn on Wednesday. The founders' decision comes after several rounds of talks for a potential sale or merger with multiple companies, including Dailyhunt, failed, sources said.

The social media network gained popularity in 2021 when the Indian government was in a scuffle with X/Twitter over the non-removal of some content, with several ministers and departments of the Union government flocking to Koo. In the LinkedIn post, company’s co-founder Mayank Bidawatka said they were exploring partnerships with “multiple larger internet companies, conglomerates and media houses, but these talks didn’t yield the outcome” and that “a couple of them changed priority almost close to signing.”

The update came after a report by The Morning Context suggested that the deal between Koo and DailyHunt fell through. While the app did expand its presence in Brazil and logged over 1 million downloads in just 48 hours of launch, it struggled to gain traction in the Indian market.