Indian social media platform Koo is playing up the Indian investment and has said that more Indian entrepreneurs are investing the company. This comes at a time when there have been some questions about the Chinese investment in the platform. The official figures indicate that as much as $4.1 million has been invested in Bombinate Technologies – Koo’s parent company, by Indian investors. The company also confirms that Shunwei, the company which had invested earlier for an app called Vokal, will be exiting and the new investors will buy their stake. The company insists that Koo is an Atmanirbhar app with Indian founders and is registered in India.
Koo says that the recent investment of $4.1 million was led by an Indian investor, 3one4 Capital. The company also says that there has been a slew of Indian investment in the social media platform, that has caught the attention, over the past few weeks as the Indian government’s feud with Twitter continues. “A set of Indian entrepreneurs are seen to be investing in Koo with Ashish Hemrajani from BookMyShow, Vivekananda from Bounce, Nikhil Kamat of Zerodha amongst various others entering the cap table of the company,” says Koo in an official statement.
Earlier, Aprameya Radhakrishna who is the co-founder and CEO of Koo, had clarified in an interview with CNBC-TV18 that the Chinese investment from Shunwei Capital, would be moving out. “Shunwei had invested in the earlier brand Vokal. We have pivoted our business and focused on Koo, they are on their way out. They are being bought out by other people. We are a truly Atmanirbhar Bharat app,” he said. The 3one4 Capital venture capital firm is based in Bengaluru and is backed by Infosys veteran T.V. Mohandas Pai. Koo, also has investments from Kalaari Capital and Blume Ventures. Koo, founded in March last year, is seen as a Made In India rival for social media platform Twitter.
Over the past few days, Ministers from the Government of India including Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Ravi Shankar Prasad, as well as government departments have set up their Koo accounts. This came as a reaction to the Government’s feud with Twitter about the mandate to block some Twitter accounts and take action against some tweets posted on the platform, something that Twitter has been hesitant to do. Koo said it has so far verified handles of MeitY, MyGov, Digital India, India Post, National Informatics Centre (NIC), National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), Common Services Centre, UMANG app, Digi Locker, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), among others, on its platform.
Earlier, speaking with News18, Koo confirmed that over the past six months, since the announcement of Koo being one of the winners of the MyGov Aatmanirbhar App Challenge, downloads for the app has grown 4x. Koo has now clocked more than 3 million downloads.
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