Madhav Chanchani
Aditi Shrivastava
Madhav Chanchani
Aditi Shrivastava
Koo has won the attention of Silicon Valley investors including Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan with its proposition of monetizing Indian language speakers. But it may need a ‘TikTok moment’ to give it a boost
April 01, 2021
8 MINS READNew York-based Tiger Global Management is in advanced discussions to lead a $25-30 million funding round in Koo, the microblogging platform that gained prominence after the Indian government’s spat with Twitter, said three people involved in the talks.
Naval Ravikant, an early investor in Twitter and Clubhouse, and crypto evangelist Balaji Srinivasan are also in discussions to back the Indian language microblogging platform. Their investments are expected to close before the Tiger Global round.
The Tiger Global investment is expected to value Koo’s parent Bombinate Technologies at $100-125 million, a 4x increase from its $27 million valuation in February when it raised money from its existing backers.
“Tiger Global has issued a term sheet and is expected to invest around $15 million in the round,” said one of the persons mentioned above. Koo is expected to rope in another institutional investor as well, this person said, declining to provide more details.
Investors are lapping up Indian social media platforms like Koo not because of the popularity of Twitter or Facebook, but encouraged by the successes of the likes of China's Weibo
Bombinate, which also owns Vokal, an Indian language audio-based version of Quora, has raised $12 million so far from Kalaari Capital, 3one4 Capital, Blume Ventures, Accel, and other investors, according to Tracxn.
The company is also executing a round of secondary sale to clear up the stake China-based Shunwei Capital owns in it.
Koo CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna and Tiger Global both declined to comment on detailed queries.
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