Abillion CEO on What Went Wrong & What’s Next for the Vegan Discovery Platform

Vikas Garg, founder and CEO of Abillion, explains why the platform was forced to shut down, and reveals it’s in discussions with “investors and other parties” to explore a future for the business.

Abillion, a platform that helped people find and review plant-based products from across the world, went offline at the end of March, despite hitting financial and engagement milestones.

The business broke even and reached 3.1 million active users by the end of 2025, but it couldn’t raise the funds needed to sustain its operations. “Despite our team putting up an incredible fight and achieving our best metrics to date, we simply couldn’t overcome the realities of the current fundraising environment,” the company had said in a LinkedIn post.

It became the latest casualty of the plant-based sector, which investors have retreated from in droves since the pandemic highs. Companies in this space collectively brought in more funding in 2021 than in the next four years combined.

Investors have instead diverted their attention to artificial intelligence (AI), itself a major threat to discovery apps like Abillion. In the US, 61% of people aged 24-35 have used AI for personalised food and drink recommendations.

“The mission lives on and we’ll be working to figure out how to motivate a billion people to go vegan,” Abillion founder and CEO Vikas Garg had commented at the time.

Now, in an interview with Green Queen, he pulls the curtain on what went wrong for the startup, reflects on its successes, and explains what’s next for Abillion.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Green Queen: Why do you think there has been such a downswing in investment into the alternative protein sector in recent years?

Vikas Garg: There are myriad reasons around funding that have to do with shifts in geopolitics, investor appetite, and a lot of startups in our space just not succeeding, which has led to an overall shift in interest level amongst investors. That, plus AI, has given folks pause around software and, generally, the internet, [alongside] the continued proliferation of mega platforms like Amazon, Meta, Google, etc.

One unintended consequence of all the funding that went into plant-based meat and cellular agriculture is that a lot of the investors are left without a lot of favourable outcomes to point to.

GQ: How much money was Abillion aiming to raise, and what were the difficulties you encountered?

VG: We raised $20M over the years, and we spent it very carefully. And we crushed every metric our Series A investors wanted to see. But the landscape had changed, and it felt like there was no clarity around funding criteria amongst investors in the space.

Ultimately, it’s on us. We just didn’t arrive at a successful business model. If we had been able to scale the revenue side of the business, things would be very different. In 2025, we got the business to break-even, but even that wasn’t really good enough.

GQ: Were there any layoffs?

VG: We have fewer than 10 full-time employees. We have always operated very lean – mostly software engineers, and their skills are in demand.

GQ: How big an effect do you think AI is having on discovery platforms like yours?

VG: AI is having a massive impact on discovery platforms and the overall internet, everything from shopping apps to platforms that help people find wine or lose weight. It’s really amazing.

And AI is getting integrated into existing tools everyone uses, like Google Search. It makes it easier for people to get answers faster. And most people are happy to stop there.

GQ: What are the next steps for Abillion? Is a sale possible?

VG: We’re in discussions with our investors and other parties that have come forward after the announcement. A lot of our users have also stepped forward and asked how they can help. We have a core team that’s ready to move forward if there’s an opportunity to do so.

GQ: What’s next for you personally?

VG: I’m excited about what’s next for everyone on our team. Working at Abillion has been an intense experience for everyone – we’ve all given so much and learned so much. We’re so much better for it.

Personally, I’m focused on investing in public and private companies that are making the world a better place. Our mission at Abillion is to help a billion people go vegan. I chose that name and took on this job because I felt like I could spend the rest of my life trying to figure it out and achieve that mission.

And as I look at 2026 and the next 25 years, I think I will probably end up doing that.