iWorld
Brazilian Footballer Ronaldinho joins Koo
Mumbai: Former soccer player Ronaldinho has joined Koo. His Koo handle is @ronaldinho. Ronaldinho joined the platform, and posted in Portuguese, English, and multiple Indian languages. Such behaviour as posting in multiple languages is unique to Koo.
Ronaldinho is only seen on global social platforms. Koo has joined the ranks of global social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter in housing world-renowned personalities. He has millions of followers on other social platforms and happens to be one of the most talented football players of all time.
Launched in Brazil on 18 November, Koo claims to have since become the number one app in the Android and Apple stores. It introduced Portuguese as a language on 20 November. Since the launch of the Portuguese language, 500 eminent personalities from Brazil have joined the world’s second-largest microblogging platform. Every few minutes, eminent personalities continue to join the platform, including famous celebrities like Claudia Leitte, actor Babu Santana, author Rosana Hermann, and Choquei, a news portal, to name a few. Felipe Neto, a celebrity, surpassed 650K followers in just five days after joining the platform.
Since its launch in Brazil, Koo has registered 20 million likes, 40 million followers, four million Koos, three million votes on polls, and more than two million comments.
Koo co-founder & CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna said, “It’s the opportune time to have Ronaldinho on our platform. Our mission is to unite the world in spite of the language barriers. With FIFA being watched globally, Ronaldinho’s followers, who are spread across the world, will now be able to engage with him in the language of their choice using our unique features. Koo as a platform enables eminent personalities to communicate with their followers in their mother tongue using our unique features, including multilingual Kooing.”
Koo co-founder Mayank Bidawatka said, “We are all huge Ronaldinho fans. It’s exciting to see one of the biggest soccer legends join Koo. It will be even more exciting to meet him when we visit Brazil. We recently launched in Brazil, and Koo has become a cult brand there overnight. The warmth and love with which Brazil has received us is humbling. Within hours of its launch, Koo attracted hundreds of celebrities and millions of users. Connecting people in their native language is a very powerful thing, and we are excited to march ahead to achieve our mission of uniting the world in spite of all language barriers.”
Koo is available in 11 languages, including Portuguese, and has users from across the globe. Since the launch, Koo has granted 8,000+ yellow ticks of eminence and lakhs of green self-verification ticks to increase transparency and credibility on the platform. It is working to add more global languages and enable digital freedom in many more countries in the near future.
Gaming
MTG gaming chief Benninghoff joins NODWIN board as esports firm primes for IPO
The Gurugram-based esports firm is pursuing a public listing, has returned to profitability and is growing revenues by 42 per cent
GURUGRAM: NODWIN Gaming is moving fast. The Gurugram-based gaming and esports company has launched a pre-IPO fundraising round, appointed UBS as lead adviser for both the round and a subsequent public listing, and landed a heavyweight board director, all in one go.
The new board member is Arnd Benninghoff, executive vice president of gaming at Stockholm-listed Modern Times Group (MTG), who has overseen the group’s strategic investments and portfolio growth since 2014. He is no stranger to building things: Benninghoff has founded and built fifteen companies, served as chief digital officer at ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, managing director of SevenVentures, and chief executive of Holtzbrinck eLAB. He began his career as a journalist at Deutsche Presse Agentur and various TV networks, holds a Diplom-Kaufmann in business and administration from the University of Münster, and previously sat on the board of Edgeware AB.
The numbers back the ambition
NODWIN is not pitching a story without substance. The company has returned to EBITDA profitability and posted a 42 per cent year-on-year revenue surge, reaching $58.5m in the first nine months of FY2026. The pre-IPO round will combine a primary issuance to fund global expansion through organic growth and acquisitions, alongside a secondary sale to give existing shareholders some liquidity.
Akshat Rathee, co-founder and managing director of NODWIN Gaming, said Benninghoff understands “the entire lifecycle of the gaming and media ecosystem, from the boots-on-the-ground reality of building startups to the strategic complexity of managing multi-billion dollar global portfolios.”
Benninghoff, for his part, said the company “sits at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and technology, making it one of the most exciting players in the global gaming landscape today.”
A portfolio built for the global south
Founded in 2014 by Rathee and Gautam Virk, NODWIN has quietly assembled one of the more compelling esports portfolios outside the Western hemisphere. Its properties include DreamHack India and Comic Con India, and it recently acquired StarLadder, the Ukraine-based tournament organiser behind premier events in CS:GO and Dota 2. The company also serves as a long-term strategic marketing partner for the Evolution Championship Series (EVO), the world’s most prominent fighting game tournament, helping push it into new geographies.
Its geographic focus spans South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Backers include Nazara Technologies, KRAFTON, Sony Group Corporation, JetSynthesys, and the founders’ investment vehicle Good Game Investments.
What comes next
With UBS running the books, a board freshly reinforced with European media and gaming expertise, and revenue heading in the right direction, NODWIN is laying the groundwork deliberately. The esports industry has burned investors before with big promises and thin margins. NODWIN’s return to profitability, combined with a real portfolio of owned intellectual properties across gaming, music and youth culture, gives it a more credible runway than most. The IPO clock is now ticking.
