A Group of Indian A-list Entrepreneurs Buy out Chinese Investors Shunwei Capital's Stake in Koo

A set of A-list entrepreneurs namely Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy and former Indian Cricketer Javagal Srinath have brought out Chinese investors Shunwei Capital’s stake in the parent firm of Koo, India’s answer to Twitter.

Alongside, BookMyShow founder Ashish Hemrajani, Udaan co-founder Sujeet Kumar and Zerodha founder Nikhil Kamat are the others who brought out Shunwei’s over nine percent stake in Bombinate Technologies.

In a statement, the company states, "Existing investors along with a bunch of individuals have bought out Shunwei Capital's minority stake in Bombinate Technologies Pvt Ltd, the parent company of Vokal and Koo."

Although, the organization did not reveal the financial details of the deal. Koo, which caught public attention after the Indian government's tussle through Twitter over the removal of inflammatory contents, has exceeded more than four million downloads with close to one million active users.

Koo's investors include 3one4 Capital, Blume Ventures, Accel Partners, and Kalaari Capital. Furthermore, global venture capital firm, Shunwei, was also an investor in Bombinate Technologies, the parent of Koo.

Shunwei Capital, which is led by a partnership team that includes people of Chinese origin, has also invested in the earlier product of Bombinate, an app called Vokal. Since Bombinate has pivoted its primary business and focused on Koo, Shunwei committed to exiting the company and the deal concluding now.

Javagal Srinath, former Indian cricketer and fast bowler says, "I am very happy to be backing Koo - one of India's most talked-about social media platforms. The fact that they are building a platform to bring the voices of Indian language audiences onto the internet is commendable and as an Indian, I extend my support to them wholeheartedly."

Aprameya Radhakrishna, CEO and Co-founder, Koo said, "As earlier stated, we had been in discussion with Shunwei Capital to enable a smooth exit after it invested in our company 2.5 years ago while we were raising funds for Vokal and have now fully exited the parent company Bombinate Technologies."

In a statement, the company states "It is important to note that Koo has been one of the first companies in India to be proactive in its actions of cleaning up its cap table and has doubled down on its commitment to build an Aatmanirbhar app for India and the world."

So far Koo has raised about $4.1 million from the investors that include Infosys veteran Mohandas Pai’s 3one4 Capital, Blume Venture, and Kalaari Capital.

Koo is available in several Indian languages including Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, and Marathi.