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Chat gets a new purpose and meaning with Kutumb

Admins on this app can monetise the groups via paid subscription

Kutumb is a forum-first threaded communication platform for each community
Kutumb is a forum-first threaded communication platform for each community

Human beings are inherently social creatures and need to be part of communities either offline or online. And ever since the pandemic hit us, online communities have become prominent in our lives. While the existing platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram are widely popular, they are not efficient in handling large groups or communities, claims Abhishek Kejriwal, the founder and CEO of Kutumb 

(it means family in Hindi), a community platform that enables its users to be part of private communities, sanghatans, sanghs, samaj, etc. and engage with them on a daily basis.

“Both (WhatsApp and Telegram) being a chat-first platform, does not solve for content filtration and notifies everyone in the group about every small message. This becomes frustrating at a scale of 200+ members, and almost every member ends up muting that group. Also, both the platforms do not offer a direct way for the admin to monetise their community,” he adds.

“We started the Kutumb app in mid 2020, and in two years we have grown from 0 to 20,000+ communities with 40 million+ registered users in those communities,” says Kejriwal. “In fact, it has features that change the dynamics of community management. It has no limit to the number of people joining a community and allows the admin to have full control over who joins and what content is being posted”, he adds.

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Kejriwal talks about the initial idea behind his creation. “We realised that one in every five admins wanted a private online space for the community they were running. We spent a lot of time around this user need and arrived on two major insights. One, it’s difficult for large groups to thrive on WhatsApp. The chat inside a large WhatsApp group eventually becomes spam, with almost everyone ending up muting the group. Two, the admins are unable to earn significant money, even if they are devoting 50 hours a month to maintain the large group that they have created.”

According to him, Kutumb is a forum-first threaded communication platform for each community enabling admins to manage and monetise their communities in multiple ways. It has two working revenue models, says Kejriwal. “Given that we have the interests of a user on the basis of communities he/she has joined, it’s a little easier for brands to target the right audience via advertisements. For example, a brand that caters to schools/teachers can easily target hundreds of teachers’ communities spanning across multiple states.” Also, admins on Kutumb monetise their communities via paid subscriptions. “We charge a flat commission on all the subscription payments flowing through the platform.”

Kutumb has raised in total about $28 million via its Seed and Series A funding rounds. The company is backed by Tiger Global, Sequoia, Better capital and White Board Capital. “We are in a very good position with a long runway. Our primary focus right now is to grow rapidly and monetise the platform,” he adds.

For the next 12 months, Kutumb is planning to scale rapidly. “A platform for large communities is a huge opportunity. There are about three million large associations registered in India, looking to go digital. Solving for seamless communication, better member’s management and multiple ways of monetisation for the admin, Kutumb is well positioned to become a “default” platform for large communities, Kejriwal claims

GROWTH SO FAR

  • Kutumb has 2.5 million daily active users; 10 million monthly users and 
  • 40 million total users across 20,000+ communities
  • Growing at 1.5 million users a month with a target to achieve 100 million users in the next 1-2 years
  • Provision of digital icard and collection of online payments
  • Pool of services — Matrimony, Jobs, Donations, Influencer led commerce and services

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First published on: 25-10-2022 at 01:15 IST
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