The founders of homegrown microblogging site Koo spent much of the last couple of days managing two challenges: first burnishing its ‘Indian’ credentials while dispelling any concerns over its Chinese funding links, and second ensuring the platform is robust enough to deal with the influx of new users as ministers and bureaucrats clamber on to it along with their followers after the Modi government’s latest standoff with Twitter.

Koo co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna, who earlier founded online cab booking service TaxiForSure, has revealed that the funding of parent company Bombinate Technologies Pvt Ltd largely came from Indian investors.

The $4.1 million series A funding round announced last week was led by former Infosys veteran Mohandas Pai’s 3One4 Capital which joins other investors such as Accel, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and Dream Incubator.

According to data from Crunchbase, Bombinate Technologies had raised a series A funding in 2018 for Vokal, an application that allows questions to be asked and answered in Indian languages. That round of funding of $5 million had a Chinese investor: Shunwei Capital, which will now exit the company, says Radhakrishna.

“Koo is an India registered company with Indian founders. Raised earlier capital 2.5 years ago. Latest funds for Bombinate Technologies is led by a truly Indian investor 3One4Capital. Shunwei (single digit shareholder) which had invested in our Vokal journey will be exiting fully,” he said in a tweet.

But Koo has already become embroiled in controversy after ethical hacker Elliot Anderson revealed on Twitter that the platform was exposing sensitive information of its users including email address, date of birth, marital status, gender etc. There have also been concerns about whether its servers are based out of India.

Radhakrishnan has vigorously countered the criticism in a series of tweets. “The data visible is something the user has voluntarily shown on their profile of Koo. It cannot be termed a data leak. If you visit a user profile, you can see it anyway,” he said.

Radhakrishna also posted a screenshot of its domain information to assert that the company is registered in India and its servers are located in the country. The company has already built a 3 million user base and is looking to raise it 10-fold.