Homegrown microblogging platform Koo has laid off 30% of its around 300 employees in recent months amid increase in losses, fall in active users and weak global sentiment.
The Tiger Global-backed company has laid off employees in two cycles from September to March, people in the know said. In September 2022, the company laid off 15 staffers and collectively the number of layoff is around 90.
“It’s important for businesses of all sizes to adopt efficient and conservative approaches to see this period through. In line with this, we have acted on some role redundancies by letting go of 30% of our workforce over the course of the year and have supported them through compensation packages, extended health benefits and outplacement services,” a company spokesperson said.
“We are well capitalised with our recent fundraise of $10 million in January 2023. We aren’t looking at raising funds right now. We are making great progress with revenue and will look to raise funds in the future as necessary,” the spokesperson added.
In March, FE reported that the startup seems to be losing momentum on monthly active users. The company’s monthly active users reduced to 4.1 million in January from 9.4 million in July 2022, FE had reported citing sources.
In FY22, Koo’s revenues were at Rs 14 lakh, up from Rs 8 lakh a year ago. However, its losses jumped 460% to `197 crore in FY22 from `35 crore in FY21. This probably explains the need for cutting back on expenses.
“Given the current market environment and external realities of a global slowdown, we get affected too. Some of the most profitable companies in the world have shed tens of thousands of jobs. We are a young startup with a long way ahead of us,” the company said.
“The global sentiment right now is more focused on efficiency than growth and businesses need to work towards proving unit economics,” the company added.
Koo was founded in 2020 by Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka. The company has so far raised over $70 million from investors such as Blume Ventures, Accel, Kalaari Capital, 3one4 Capital, etc.
In three years of launch, the company’s app downloads surpassed 60 million. The reason behind the company’s sudden rise can be attributed to the government being locked in a tiff with its rival Twitter over intermediary guidelines.
Koo started its monetisation experiments in September 2022. The company’s spokesperson said that within six months it has one of the highest average revenue per user based on daily active users compared to Indian social media companies and direct global competitors.