Govt responds to Twitter blogpost — on homegrown app Koo

AFTER TWITTER put out its blogpost on Wednesday, the Union Ministry of Electronics and Data Know-how’s first response was on Koo, a homegrown microblogging platform.

In a koo – time period for a put up on the platform – the ministry mentioned the IT Secretary was to “engage with” senior officers of Twitter, “upon the request of Twitter” and a blogpost “prior to this engagement is unusual”.

Greater than half-an-hour later, the ministry tweeted the identical textual content from its official Twitter deal with.

The Centre’s concerted push for the year-old Koo app, at a time when it's embroiled in a kerfuffle with Twitter, has trade insiders suggesting that the federal government is placing its weight behind an area different. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and a number of other authorities departments have joined Koo amid the government-Twitter row.

The app’s co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna informed The Indian Specific that the app witnessed an sudden surge in downloads and that almost half of its 3 million downloads have occurred up to now 30-40 days. On Wednesday, the app additionally witnessed crashes as a result of excessive masses. “We are doing our best to stabilise Koo App platform. Due to unprecedented demand, our servers are not able to handle all the load, and we are working 24/7 to add more servers. Our priority is to use India-based servers only,” the app’s official account posted on Twitter.

Whereas Regulation & IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was among the many few distinguished personalities to have joined Koo in August 2020, when it received the AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Problem, a clutch of presidency departments and senior authorities officers joined the platform this month, in line with data displayed on their particular person Koo pages. These embody the Ministry of Electronics & Data Know-how, India Publish, the Central Board of Oblique Taxes and Customs, Niti Aayog, and a number of other IT ministry divisions like Digital India, Electronics India, Frequent Service Centre and so forth.

We're proud to announce that Jharkhand CM @HemantSorenJMM would be the Chief Visitor of the dialogue ‘Decoding India’s inner migration’ on February 12 at 2pm.

Register right here to affix: https://t.co/ngDRKfgS9T pic.twitter.com/7DLIk0HZju

— The Indian Specific (@IndianExpress) February 9, 2021

Amongst others on Koo are MP Tejasvi Surya, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, Isha Basis’s Sadhguru, former cricketers Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble. Actor Anupam Kher joined the app on Wednesday.

Run by Bengaluru-based Bombinate Applied sciences Pvt Ltd, Koo was launched on Google Play Retailer in November 2019, and was launched to the general public in early 2020. In August final yr, it was among the many winners of the AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Problem, which the federal government introduced quickly after banning a rating of cellular apps with Chinese language hyperlinks.

Bombinate Applied sciences additionally runs Vokal, an area model of the favored on-line question-and-answer platform Quora. In accordance with knowledge sourced from Crunchbase, the corporate has raised funding from buyers like Blume Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Accel India and others. Amongst its buyers is Chinese language enterprise capital agency Shunwei Capital however it was in means of promoting its stake within the firm.

“Koo is an Indian registered company with Indian founders. Raised capital two-and-a-half years ago. Latest funds for Bombinate Technologies is led by a truly Indian investor 3one4 Capital. Shunwei (single digit shareholder) which had invested in our Vokal journey will be exiting fully,” the CEO mentioned.

Koo was co-founded by entrepreneurs Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidwatka. The previous had earlier based on-line cab reserving service TaxiForSure, which was later bought to Ola Cabs.

Within the newest spherical of funding introduced earlier this month, Bombinate Applied sciences raised funding from present buyers and added a brand new title — former Infosys CFO TV Mohandas Pai’s 3one4 Capital – to the listing.

The federal government’s try to push a Made-in-India social networking app is consistent with sure quarters internationally in search of a substitute for Twitter.