A week ago things stirred up a bit for Koo when it was found out that a Chinese company had stake in the app. But now, Koo’s co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna has confirmed that the chinese investor is now on its way out as the investors have pledged to buy out its 9 per cent stake.
The App started gaining popularity after Twitter had received notice from the government regarding the removal of accounts from its platform. Koo has crossed over 3 million downloads with about a million active users.
Koo’s investors include Accel Partners, 3one4 Capital, Blume Ventures, and Kalaari Capital. Additionally, global venture capital firm, Shunwei, is also an investor in Bombinate Technologies which is the parent company of Koo.
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Since Bombinate has moved its primary business and focused on Koo, Shunwei has committed to exiting the company, Radhakrishna said. Bombinate had a product earlier called Vokal in which Shunwei Capital had invested. Shunwei capital is LED by a partnership team that includes people of Chinese origin.
“Over 2018 to now, Koo was started as an experiment and it gained traction. We had no idea, this will be a national sentiment product and that we should not take money other than Indian or something that is welcome,” he said. “Nobody really questions at Vokal. It’s about Koo.”
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“Koo started getting traction recently. And the latest round of investment ($4.1 million in Bombinate) was led by 3one4 Capital and Shunwei hasn’t participated. We actually made sure that there is no more participation from Chinese investors,” he added.
As the restrictions are implied strictly regarding the Chinese investors in India, the exit procedure was going through the required checks and clarifications before being completed. The company expects this exit transaction to be completed very soon, as it is currently pending the necessary compliance and governance procedures.