"We explored partnerships with several large internet companies, conglomerates and media houses, but these talks did not yield the results we wanted," Koo founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka wrote in a LinkedIn post.

“Most of them didn't want to deal with user-generated content and the wild nature of a social media company. Some of them changed preferences close to signing,” he added.

Koo, which raised over $60 million in funding from leading investors such as Tiger Global and Accel, faced significant challenges in expanding its user base and generating revenue over the past year.

Media firm Dailyhunt was in the final stages of talks to acquire Koo in February, TechCrunch reported.

Further in the post, the founders mentioned that "At our peak, we had approximately 2.1 million daily active users and approximately 10 million monthly active users, with over 9000 VIPs, including some of the most eminent personalities from various sectors".

“We were just months away from beating Twitter (now X) in India in 2022 and with the capital we could double that short-term goal,” he said.

The founders also noted that the market mood and funding winter "fell upon us".