SUMMARY
- Co-founder of Koo, Mayank Bidawatka is working on a new venture named Billion Hearts Software Technologies.
- He has secured $250,000 in an angel investment round for this venture.
- It is supported by 13 angel investors, including the founders of companies like redBus, Ola, InMobi, Myntra among others.
Mayank Bidawatka, one of the co-founders of the homegrown microblogging platform Koo, which ceased operations in July, is working on a new venture named Billion Hearts Software Technologies. He has secured $250,000 in an angel investment round for this venture.
The new venture is supported by 13 angel investors, including the founders of companies like redBus, Ola, InMobi, Myntra, and former Flipkart CTO, among others.
Bidawatka shared with ET that Billion Hearts is in the stealth phase of developing a consumer application and is targeting a multibillion-dollar market opportunity worldwide.
He stated, “We will be out with the beta version of the product between December this year and January next year for a select few users initially.” He added, “In India itself this is a billion-dollar revenue opportunity.”
While he did not disclose the specifics of the product under development, he mentioned that the company has successfully closed an angel investment round of $250,000. The focus of the venture is on creating consumer digital products for a global audience. The initial product launch is set to target smartphone users worldwide, covering a broad use case with advanced technology involved.
The investors in this venture include a diverse mix of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs who have built consumer tech companies in India and have expanded globally, and corporate executives.
Puneet Chawla, founder, Jaypore, shared with ET, “I was a part of the first round. It is a population scale product with a unique proposition. Anybody with a smartphone will find use for this consumer app and I don’t think this has been attempted before. It’s an exciting problem statement and the beta version will be out soon.”
Currently, the team at Billion Hearts, which consists of ten members, is working remotely. The company is in the process of finding a co-working space in Bengaluru’s Indiranagar.
The team is expanding to 15 members, with expertise in backend development, Android and iOS development, and machine learning.
The investors in this venture include Phanindra Sama, founder of redBus; Ankit Bhati, co-founder of Ola; Piyush Shah, founder of InMobi; Raveen, founder of Myntra; Narasimha Reddy, CFO of MoEngage; Mekin Maheshwari, former CTO of Flipkart; Puneet Chawla, founder of Jaypore; Rekuram Varadharaj, co-founder of healthi; Nithin Chandra, director of product at Facebook; Bhaskar Raju, Engineering Head at Rattle; Nizamabad Angels; Darshit Vora, partner at Acherman Capital; Vibhore Sharma, partner at Capital 2B.
Regarding the lessons he learned from his time at Koo, Bidawatka said, “The biggest learning from Koo is to start monetising as early as possible. It helps the startup become self-sufficient and independent of the need for funds.”
