The news content aggregator DailyHunt, located in Bengaluru, is reportedly in the final phases of acquiring the Indian start-up Koo, as per sources cited by TechCrunch on Wednesday. The deal is expected to be completed within the next three weeks. Koo has been positioned as an alternative to the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Back in September 2023, Koo's founder, Mayank Bidawatka, had expressed the company's interest in fundraising opportunities or forming strategic partnerships to facilitate the expansion of its operations.
"The next phase for Koo is to build scale, which will happen with either funding or through a strategic partnership with someone who already has scale," he said. With a scale-ready platform, Koo can outshine competitors with the right push on growth, Bidawatka had claimed then.
“We still believe that a microblog built for the native language speakers is the most inclusive way to take microblogging to the larger world. 80% of the world speaks a native language, other than English, and they too deserve a language first platform to express themselves and connect better,” he said.
Bidawatka mentioned that Koo's initial plan was to focus on scaling before generating revenue, but due to unfavorable market conditions, they had to pivot from a growth trajectory to prioritize revenue generation. He expressed regret, stating that Koo could have outpaced Twitter in India with just six more months following their original plan.
In 2023, the company integrated OpenAI's ChatGPT to assist users in easily creating posts. ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence bot capable of generating prose in response to prompts, triggered significant interest in the tech industry and became a notable trend in generative AI.
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