Social media app Koo to shut down as acquisition talks fail

Indian social media startup Koo, which had branded itself as an alternative to microblogging site X, is shutting down its services, the company’s founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka announced on Wednesday.

Koo was launched in March 2020. The app, which described itself as a platform “built for Indians to share their views in their mother tongue and have meaningful discussions” garnered prominence in 2021 after several government officials endorsed it.

This had come amid the Narendra Modi government’s differences with X, then known as Twitter. The Centre had asked Twitter to block certain accounts related to the 2020-’21 farmers’ protests, and had threatened the company with penal action if it failed to comply.