Homegrown microblogging platform Koo has raised $30 million in series B funding, led by Tiger Global with existing investors Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and Dream Incubator. IIFL and Mirae Assets are other new investors who have come on board the cap table with this round.
The fresh round of funding will be utilised mainly to strengthen engineering, product and community efforts across all Indian languages at Koo. Earlier, the platform had raised $4.1 million as part of its Series A funding. Along with the existing investors, Infosys veteran Mohandas Pai’s 3one4 Capital too had participated in the round.
Koo, which was launched last year after it won the government’s Aatmanirbhar App Innovation Challenge in August 2020, has garnered nearly 6 million downloads so far, becoming a significant social media intermediary (SSMI). Social media firms having more than 5 million users in India, are termed SSMIs and such firms are required to have additional compliance under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021. While global firms like Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram have sought more time to comply, Koo has already complied with the new rules.
Koo’s Privacy Policy, terms of use and community guidelines reflect the requirements of the rules as applicable to SSMIs. In addition, Koo has implemented due diligence and grievance redressal mechanism supported by an Indian resident chief compliance officer, nodal officer and grievance officer.
The app, founded by serial entrepreneurs Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka, aims to have 100 million users by the end of this year. The local microblogging platform in Indian languages had gained prominence recently amid the standoff between Twitter and the government. Many top ministers as well as government departments have joined the platform and are regularly sharing updates on it.
