Former Koo Co-Founder Mayank Bidawatka raises $4 million for Billion Hearts

Mayank Bidawatka, the former co-founder of Koo, has raised $4 million in seed funding for his new venture, Billion Hearts Software Technologies Pvt Ltd.

The funding round was led by Blume Ventures, with participation from General Catalyst and Athera Venture Partners. In addition to this, the key investors in the round include Karthik Reddy, Partner at Blume Ventures, Neeraj Arora, Managing Director at General Catalyst and ex-CBO of WhatsApp, and Rutvik Doshi, Partner at Athera Venture Partners.

Founded in August 2024, Billion Hearts is currently developing a digital consumer product aimed at global markets. The product is focused on offering deep-tech solutions for a smartphone-related use case. Although details remain under wraps, the company plans to launch a beta version in the coming months, and thousands of users have already signed up for early access.

This funding round follows a previous angel investment of approximately $250K from notable startup founders who have previously built companies like redBus, Ola, InMobi, Flipkart, and Myntra.

Bidawatka's previous venture, Koo, which was a homegrown alternative to Twitter, now known as X, shut down in July 2024 after its acquisition talks with media company DailyHunt fell through.

Prior to his involvement with Koo, Bidawatka co-founded other successful companies such as Goodbox in 2015 and Media Ant in 2012. He was also part of the founding team of the online bus ticketing platform redBus, which he helped launch in 2007.