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Millions of social media users in India are stranded after homegrown microblogging platform Koo, which had branded itself as an alternative to X, announced it was shutting services.<\/p>\n
The platform’s founders said a shortage of funding along with high costs for technology had led to the decision. <\/p>\n
Launched in 2020, Koo offered messaging in more than 10 Indian languages.<\/p>\n
It gained prominence in 2021 after several ministers endorsed it amid a row between the Indian government and X, which was then known as Twitter. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The spat began after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government asked the US-based platform to block a list of accounts it claimed were spreading fake news. The list included journalists, news organisations and opposition politicians.<\/p>\n
X complied initially but then restored the accounts, citing “insufficient justification”. <\/p>\n
The face-off continued as the government threatened legal action against the company’s employees in India.<\/p>\n
Amid the row, a flurry of supporters, cabinet ministers and officials from Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) migrated to Koo overnight. Many of them shared hashtags calling for X to be banned in India.<\/p>\n
By the end of 2021, the app had touched 20 million downloads in the country. <\/p>\n
However, the platform has struggled to get funding in the last few years. <\/p>\n
On Wednesday, founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka said that Koo was “just months away” from beating X in India in 2022, but a “prolonged funder winter” had forced them to tone down their ambitions. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe explored partnerships with multiple larger internet companies, conglomerates and media houses but these talks didn\u2019t yield the outcome we wanted,\u201d they wrote on LinkedIn. <\/p>\n
\u201cMost of them didn\u2019t want to deal with user-generated content and the wild nature of a social media company. A couple of them changed priority almost close to signing.\u201d<\/p>\n
In February, Indian news websites had reported that Koo was in talks to be acquired by news aggregator Dailyhunt. But the talks did not succeed.<\/p>\n