Koo cofounder Mayank Bidawatka announces new venture Billion Hearts Software

Mayank Bidawatka, cofounder of homegrown microblogging platform Koo, which shut down in July, is now starting a new venture called Billion Hearts Software Technologies, he said in a LinkedIn post.

“Billion Hearts as a name represents the dreams of many. And hopefully the usage of billions of users around the world for whom this startup will build beautiful digital products,” he said on Tuesday.

According to Bidawatka, the new venture is set to launch in a few months. It will build consumer products for global users, as per its website.



In an earlier post, Bidawatka said the venture has secured angel funding from several founder friends who have established marquee consumer tech startups in India. "We are busy talking to some known VCs for seed funding,” he added.

Bidawatka’s previous startup, Koo, which was founded in 2020 along with Aprameya Radhakrishna, shut down this year after unsuccessful rounds of talks for a potential sale or merger with several companies, including Dailyhunt.

“We explored partnerships with multiple larger internet companies, conglomerates and media houses, but these talks didn’t yield the outcome we wanted. Most of them didn’t want to deal with user-generated content and the wild nature of a social media company,” Radhakrishna had said.

Accel and Tiger Global-backed Koo was last valued at $274 million after it raised more than $66 million from investors, including 3one4 Capital.

The LinkedIn post from the Koo founders had said the prolonged funding winter “got the better of us”. “We needed five to six years of aggressive, long-term and patient capital to make this dream a reality,” they said.

Before starting Koo, Bidawatka had also built ventures such as Goodbox and The Media Ant.

On Tuesday, ET reported that Ayyappan R, former chief executive of Flipkart-owned Cleartrip, is set to launch a new quick-commerce retail venture and is in talks with venture capital firms Accel and RTP Global for a sizable seed funding.