Social media platform Koo is in talks with multiple companies for a strategic partnership, according to Co-founder Mayank Bidawatka, as the Indian X alternate hunts for ways to survive amid a funding crunch.
Bengaluru-based VerSe Innovation Pvt., the parent company of short video app Josh and news app Dailyhunt, is in final stages to acquire Koo, TechCrunch reported. Bidawatka's clarification came soon after the report surfaced.
"In my last LinkedIn post, I had alluded to a strategic partnership that would help us grow organically. Over the past few months, we have been talking to multiple partners who could help us achieve this," he wrote.
Bidawatka, who founded Koo with Aprameya Radhakrishna, said his responsibility towards a wider community of stakeholders (users, creators, VIPs, investors, policy makers, media) forces the company to not share anything prematurely while it would like to say more.
"Requesting your patience till we can share more concrete details of this partnership, that will help Koo take wings in an organic manner and help challenge global competitors in a meaningful way," he said.
"Indian digital products are being made to international standards and it's time to create global brands from India. As everyone knows, the startup ecosystem globally has witnessed a funding crunch, without which, Koo would have been on its way to rapid international market expansion," Bidawatka said.
In September last year, Bidawatka had said that the next phase for Koo is to build scale, but with a slow investor market, the best way forward is to "partner with someone who has the distribution strength to give Koo massive user impetus and help it grow."
"With the current reality of a slow investor market, the best way forward is to partner with someone who has the distribution strength to give Koo massive user impetus and help it grow," he had said.
VerSe Innovation has had a rough funding winter as well, despite raising massive sums from investors. In September 2022, it laid off about 150 employees and cut salaries for a section of its employees.
That came only seven months after the company raised $805 million from marquee global investors, such as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, and Luxor Capital, among others. VerSe Innovation’s valuation reached roughly $5 billion in this April round.
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