Koo looks to double headcount

Homegrown microblogging platform Koo is planning to double its headcount in the next one year as it significantly scales up its user base on the platform, especially vernacular subscribers, its co-founder said. Speaking to PTI, Koo co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna said the platform with its current user base of 6 million has a lot of headroom for growth.

“When folks join Koo, they bring their followers as well, we don’t have too many Bollywood folks yet, we don’t have too many cricketers yet. There are lots of politicians, writers...who will find their unique reasons to be on Koo because we are enabling local languages,” he said.

Radhakrishna said Koo is growing exponentially as people are looking for ways to converse online in local languages with community members, and that the platform is helping people express themselves in their local language. “We want to hit 100 million downloads in the next year or so. It is plausible, a 20X growth is very much possible, it depends on what all events lead to it. There are a lot of people who are yet to join Koo,” he said.

Koo, which was launched last year, has seen a massive surge in its user base over the past few months after Union ministers and government departments endorsed the homegrown microblogging platform following a spat with Twitter.

Koo has about 6 million users on its platform. Twitter, on the other hand, has 17.5 million users in India.

India remains a critical market for Internet companies like Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter with its large population base and burgeoning Internet adoption. The country is the world’s second-largest telecom market and the biggest consumer of data. Koo is looking to at least double its headcount from about 75 professionals currently over the next 12 months, he added.