Koo lays off 30% of its workforce over the course of the year

Homegrown microblogging site Koo has laid off almost a third of its employees in the last year.

The company which is touted as a Twitter rival said it has let go of 30% of its 260-strong workforce over the course of the year.

"Like most startups Koo also built in a workforce to account for spikes," a Koo spokesperson said in a statement to ET on Thursday. "Given the current market environment and external realities of a global slowdown, we get affected too."


The three-year-old firm added that it was important for businesses of all sizes to adopt 'efficient and conservative approaches' to see this period through. The layoffs were in line with this but the company said it supported employees through compensation packages, extended health benefits and outplacement services.

We aren't looking at raising funds right now. We are making great progress with revenue and will look to raise funds in the future as necessary.

The app which counts Tiger Global, Accel and Kalaari Capital among its investors has over 60 million app downloads. It said it is "well capitalized" with its recent fundraise of $10 million in January this year.

"We aren't looking at raising funds right now. We are making great progress with revenue and will look to raise funds in the future as necessary," the spokesperson added.

Koo also started its monetization experiments in September 2022 and claims that within 6 months it has one of the highest ARPU (average revenue per user) per DAU (daily active users) compared to Indian social media companies and direct global competitors.