'Will start something new', says Mayank Bidawatka after shutting down India's Twitter rival Koo

Just days after shutting down Koo, India's former rival to Twitter (now X), co-founder Mayank Bidawatka announced that he is embarking on a new entrepreneurial journey with a consumer tech venture.

Bidawatka took to LinkedIn and said the new project is under wraps and is being bootstrapped.

"Will soon start something new. It's under wraps. It's being bootstrapped for now. An idea that's been close to me for many years. It's a good time to bring it to life. Will be a consumer tech product," he wrote.

Notably, Bidawatka revealed that a seven-member team is already working on the project. He also invited interested candidates to join the team early.

"Looking for solid BE, ML, iOS, and Android folks. While this will be massive as a commercial entity, the seven of us working on this project are doing so out of belief and passion, not out of commercial interest, yet," he added.

Earlier this month, Koo co-founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka announced the closure of the platform as they failed to sell or merge it.

"Our partnership talks fell through, and we will be discontinuing our service to the public," the founders said in a note.

"We explored partnerships with multiple companies, but most of them didn't want to deal with user-generated content and the wild nature of a social media company," they said.

"A couple of them changed priority almost close to signing. While we would've liked to keep the app running, the cost of technology services to keep a social media app running is high and we've had to take this tough decision," they said.

Among the potential deals were discussions with DailyHunt, a prominent content aggregator. According to media reports, these negotiations fell through, leaving Koo with no viable path forward.