Tiger Global-backed Koo trims workforce by 30%

The total number of layoffs at Koo, including the previous two rounds, do not exceed 30 percent of its total workforce, the company said in a statement to Moneycontrol.

Koo, the homegrown microblogging platform, has laid off 30 percent of its employees over the past months to reduce role redundancies as the company focuses on increasing business efficiency and better its unit economics, it said in a statement.

Koo has a total workforce of about 300 people, of which around 90 will be impacted by the decision, sources told Moneycontrol.

Separately, Koo is also unable to raise funds because of which it had to axe jobs and lower its costs, according to a Bloomberg report. The Bengaluru-based company has however said that it remains “well capitalised” and is currently not looking to raise capital.

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The total number of layoffs at Koo, including the previous two rounds, does not exceed 30 percent of its total workforce, the company said in a statement to Moneycontrol. The Tiger Global-backed startup laid off 15 employees in September last year as it streamlined operations. Then again, in February Koo let go of around 30 employees, including a few from the top management to keep its costs in check, Moneycontrol has learnt.

“Like most startups Koo also built in a workforce to account for spikes. Given the current market environment and external realities of a global slowdown, we get affected too…In line with this, we have acted on some role redundancies by letting go of 30 percent of our workforce over the course of the year and have supported them through compensation packages, extended health benefits and outplacement services,” a Koo spokesperson told Moneycontrol.

The cost-cutting exercise comes about a month after Financial Express reported that Koo was losing traction on active user count. Its monthly active users (MAUs) declined to 4.1 million in January, down from around 9.4 million in July 2022, the report added.

To counter the declining MAUs, the firm was reportedly cutting back on its expenses to bring down the monthly cash burn rate to around Rs 6 crore, from about Rs 10 crore that Koo was losing each month till at least the beginning of this year.

That was especially needed when Koo’s revenues increased by 75 percent year-on-year from Rs 8 lakh in FY21 to Rs 14 lakh in FY22. Its losses, however, jumped 460 percent from Rs 35 crore in FY21 to Rs 197 crore in FY22.

Founded in 2020 by Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka, Koo has so far raised over $70 million from investors such as Accel, Blume Ventures, Kalaari Capital, 3one4 Capital and others.

With over 60 million downloads, it claims to be the second-largest microblogging platform in the world, after Elon Musk-owned Twitter. Koo said it has a presence in over 100 countries and offers more than 20 global languages.

In an interview with Moneycontrol in February last year, Koo’s founders said they were confident of hitting 100 million downloads in the ‘near future’.