Aug. 17 (NBD) -- Chinese software firm Redcore on Friday apologized for having misled the public by claiming to have developed a web browser with independent intellectual property rights, after being accused of using parts of Google's code.

The firm admitted in the statement that it had based its browser on Chromium, an open-source browser project of Google, but it didn't explicitly mention this in its advance publicity.

It's noteworthy that just two days ago, Redcore had just completed its Series C round of financing, raising 250 million yuan (36.3 million U.S. dollars).

According to the data search platform Tianyancha, Redcore had finished 5 rounds of financing to date, winning a total of 578 million yuan (83.9 million U.S. dollars) from investors including Morningside Venture Capital, IDG Capital as well as tech company iFlytek.

Redcore removed the download link for the web browser from its website on Thursday, after the browser was found to have a large number of files with the same names as those of Google Chrome.

Building a software on open source technology counts as independent development, but the company should not brag that it has developed the kernel, the news portal yicai reported citing Liu Feng, founder of clouding computing vendor Trusted Cloud.

Liu elaborated that most of operating systems in China were built on OpenStack, which is a set of software tools for building and managing cloud computing platforms for public and private clouds.

Founded in 2012, the firm previously was named AllMobilize Inc and primarily engaged in developing HTML5 and the mobile adapter under the "AllMobilize" brand.

However, the year 2016 witnessed a major business shift for Redcore. The firm began to position itself as an independent web browser developer under the eponymous label. Redcore started then providing services like work platform and cloud security for government, enterprises and public institutions, according to its website.

Why did Redcore suddenly dive into the web browser sector and when would the download link come back online?

With regard to these questions, NBD contacted Redcore for comments but hadn't received any feedback as of press time.

The incident also brought Redcore's founder and chief executive under the spotlight.

According to media reports, Chen Benfeng was recruited into the initial team of iFlytek in 2000 and then joined Microsoft as a R&D engineer in 2006 after graduating from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with a master's degree.  

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn