Indian App Koo has been making quite a buzz. From the top ministers to some celebs, Koo has been gaining prominent followers.
Koo, a made-in-India Twitter alternative has already become a darling of several government agencies, including the Ministry of Information Technology and Prasar Bharti. Several Ministers and leaders, including Prasad, Piyush Goyal, B.S. Yediyurappa, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and H.D. Deve Gowda have joined the Koo bandwagon.
Koo users can post their opinions publicly. They can share content in several ways —offer 400-character updates or share an audio clip or photos and videos. So a ‘tweet’ becomes ‘koo’ and a ‘retweet’ becomes a ‘rekoo’. Koo users can follow people and use hashtags. These “Koos” are seen by the people they follow, just like Twitter.
Before the Twitter controversy, Koo never aimed to be its alternative. Koo has launched nearly 10 months ago simply as an app to enable users express themselves in Indian languages. In fact, it didn’t even have an English section until recently. The app won the Aatmanirbhar app challenge, along with the Chingari app which is an Indian version of Tiktok.
The app has been created by Bengaluru-based Bombinate Technology Pvt Ltd and founded by Radhakrishna. An MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, he has an engineering degree from National Institute of Technology Karnataka. Way back in 2015, Radhakrishna made his mark when he sold Taxi For Sure to Ola for $200 million. Today Koo’s parent company has raised $6.5 million from Blume Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Accel Partners India, and former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai.