The Indian government has vouched that Koo short messaging app — a local version of Twitter one can say — is “indigenously developed and data is stored in India”, and any Chinese investment in the parent company of the app was as per prescribed regulations.

“As per details provided by the company that has developed the app, it has been indigenously developed and app data is completely stored in India in its servers located in Mumbai. Being an Indian company with operationswithin the country, it has to adhere to all the existing data privacy and security regulations of the government,” Sanjay Dhotre, juter for Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (Meity) said in Parliament yesterday.

Pointing out that the ministry had launched a Digital India Aatma Nirbhar App Innovation Challenge in 2020 for Indian entrepreneurs and startups, Dhotre told his fellow parliamentarians that the Koo app was shortlisted as an “awardee for the said challenge under the Social Media category as it was an eligible participant to be classified as a domestic company”.

The government was asked in parliament whether it was correct that there was Chinese investment in the parent company of the Koo app, which has led to security and data breach concerns.

“Under the extant FDI policy of Government of India, 100 per cent investment through automatic route was allowed for IT companies till notification of Press Note 3 of Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce & Industry dated 17th April 2020. Koo App has been developed by an Indian IT company prior to such notification,” the minister said.

In a related development, Business Todaymagazine reported that China-based Shunwei Capital held a stake in Bombinate Technologies, the parent company of Vokal and Koo apps. However, Shunwei Capital’s stake (a little over 9 per cent) has now been acquired by new and existing investors of Koo in its latest round of funding.

Some of the known names who have invested in the company, according to BT, include former Indian cricketer Javagal Srinath, BookMyShow founder Ashish Hemrajani, Udaan co-founder Sujeet Kumar, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy and Zerodha founder Nikhil Kamath.

Claiming to be the “voice of India in Indian languages”, Koo is an Indian microblogging and social networking service based in Bengaluru in India’s southern state of Karnataka, according to Wikipedia.

The app, formerly known as Ku Koo Ku, was developed by Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka in 2020 and went on to win the Indian government contest.