Stock trading app Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath is interested in entering the media space, but not in the way traditional media works. The entrepreneur, who also runs the popular podcast ‘WTF Is’, in a conversation with NDTV Editor-in-Chief Rahul Kanwal shared his vision of what it would be like if he finally decided to take the plunge into the media business.
Today’s world seems to get more fragmented with every passing month. “With media we do have aspirations but I don’t think it’s covering the news kind of media. “Like China, I grew up in a world which was getting more globalised. Like China has its own version of everything: social media, e-commerce, quick commerce, all of that. “India might have its own version of everything American.
I think the aspiration is to build social media, a new version of it, and we’ve been experimenting with different apps,” the Zerodha co-founder said at the NDTV World Summit. He said there is a strong reason behind the wish to enter the media space and cited the example of neighbouring China to illustrate his point. I wouldn’t be surprised if more of the world goes in that direction and at some point in time India might have its own social media,” Kamath said. We’re trying to build something with that world in mind, but hopefully also something that can travel outside of India and not just be restricted to it,” he said.
It is not an easy task. A small attempt at making a homegrown social media platform came in the form of the ‘Koo’ app which briefly operated before it shut down in July 2024. At its peak, Koo had reached about 21 lakh daily active users and 1 crore monthly active users, with popular faces, especially from the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, joining the platform.
