Homegrown Twitter rival Koo says laid off 15 employees, not 40

Homegrown micro-blogging platform Koo on Tuesday said that it has laid off 15 employees, or 5 per cent of its workforce, and not 40 as earlier reported in the media.

In a fresh statement to IANS, the Twitter rival said that 15 positions "have been made redundant or removed due to performance issues".

"This is completely aligned with the industry standards of hiring and retrenchment. At the same time, Koo continues to hire talent in its monetisation, product and engineering teams," a company spokesperson said.

The additional hires, said Koo, will help it gear up for the next phase of growth and monetisation.

Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-founder and CEO, Koo, was recently in London for an industry event for Indian entrepreneurs.

The company spokesperson said that she "did not meet any funders or high net worth individuals (HNIs) in London and did not engage in any fundraising activity".

Koo has raised $44.1 million to date.

The company said it is "well capitalised, is focused on growth and enhancing innovation, driving digital inclusion and attaining 100 million downloads".

Launched in March 2020, Koo is currently available in 10 languages -- Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Bengali and English.

According to the platform, it has over 45 million downloads and is actively leveraged by 7,000 high-profile people from across the spectrum.

Koo is backed by Tiger Global and early stage investors like Accel, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and Dream incubator.

In February this year, Koo raised $10 million through Indian family offices.

The investors included Capsier Venture Partner, Ravi Modi Family Trust, Ashneer Grover, FBC Venture Partners, Adventz Finance etc, according to regulatory filings.


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