BENGALURU: Aprameya Radhakrishna, CEO and Co-founder of microblogging platform Koo, encourages more investors from India to invest in India-first products. Koo recently raised $10 million from multiple investors.
In an interaction with TNIE, Radhakrishna said, “We are not looking for money at present, but if somebody is deeply passionate about wanting to be a part of the Koo story, especially Indian investors, I will accept the Indian money at any time. The preference is to raise Indian money, but if it is unavailable for whatever reason, then we will raise investments from somewhere else.”
The recent round of fund raising saw participation from Indian investors. Koo also has other global investors such as Tiger Global and Accel. Launched in March 2020, the multilingual platform enables Indians to express themselves online in their mother tongue.
In India, not more than 10% of people converse in English. For thoughts and opinions, there is a platform like Twitter that connects the English-speaking world. “Forming communities by language helps provide comfort to those who speak only that language to express themselves among each other,” Radhakrishna said. Koo provides tools for English speaking India to be able to connect with local language audiences and what one says in English can be easily translated and directed to particular language communities.
He said giving the Indian ecosystem a window of opportunity to build their own ecosystem is important. “Having our own phones, Play Store and our own social networks are very critical in the age we live.”