Nationalistic Koo app's parent has Chinese investor

The microblogging platform KOO that shot to fame following some ministers joining the platform has been surrounded with questions about its link with China. While the company has cleared the air about Chinese investments in its parent company - Bombinate Technologies Pvt Ltd., it hasn't clarified details around the domain registration.

Hailed to be an Indian alternative of Twitter, KOO has been co-founded by entrepreneurs Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidwatka. The parent company is Bombinate Technologies Pvt Ltd that launched Vokal, the Indian version of Quora. The company recently received an investment of $4.1 million led by 3one4 Capital, which is an Indian investor. China-based Shunwei Capital had earlier invested in the company for Vokal. However, Shunwei did not participate in the latest round of funding. Instead, Shunwei (single-digit shareholder) will be exiting fully with the new investors buying their stake.

Existing investors including 3one4 Capital, Kalaari and others will also be buying out some of the stakes. Refuting news about the investment from China in the company, KOO said, "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. It is a clear indication that the company is getting more and more Indian money into the company."

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While KOO claims itself to be an Indian registered company, ethical hacker Elliot Alderson posted screenshots of the domain (kooapp.com ) registered on April 16, 2017 by Tao Zhou from China. The user is also associated with 100+ other domain names as well. However, when searched on Who.is, we found that the domain (kooapp.com) was registered on October 29, 2019 and the domain's registrant organisation is Bombinate Technologies Private Limited. At the time of the publishing this story, the request to the company seeking clarification on the same elicited no response.

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