Ex-Koo Co-founder Mayank Bidawatka launches new venture Billion Hearts

Mayank Bidawatka, former Co-founder of Koo, has taken on the role of Founder of his new venture, Billion Hearts, less than three months after the microblogging platform shut down. 

Sharing the news on a LinkedIn post, Bidawatka said the startup will focus on building digital products. 

“Thanks a lot for the love and blessings for the new venture! Loads of gratitude to have so much support from the good folks here. 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,” said Bidawatka in a LinkedIn post. 

Though the post doesn’t reveal many details about the new venture, Bidawatka mentioned that the official launch of Billion Hearts is still a few months away.

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Micro-blogging platform Koo is shutting down

Koo ceased operations in July this year after its acquisition talks with media company DailyHuntfell through. Bidawatka and his former Co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna, announced that the platform would be winding down due to the unsuccessful negotiations.

"Our partnership talks fell through and we will be discontinuing our service to the public. We explored partnerships with multiple larger internet companies, conglomerates, and media houses but these talks didn't yield the outcome we wanted," Radhakrishna and Bidawatka had said in a LinkedIn post. 

Launched in 2020, Koo emerged as a homegrown alternative to Twitter (now X), gaining popularity in 2021 when numerous officials and users began adopting the platform amid growing concerns over Twitter's compliance with Indian regulations.

The Tiger Global-backed microblogging site was home to more than 2.1 million daily active users and 10 million monthly active users, with more than 9,000 prominent figures from various sectors actively engaging on the platform.

Prior to Koo, Bidawatka also co-founded Goodbox in August 2015 and Media Ant in June 2012. He was also part of the core founding team at redBusin 2007.