The archive · Consumer Apps · Product decision · 2018–2026
Abillion's reviews-for-charity bet dies after 2M members and a funding winter
Each review donated to charity; the Singapore app hit 2M+ members and $2.8M in donations, then shut down when plant-based funding ran dry.
Abillion
What the business is
Abillion was a Singapore-founded review app for vegan and cruelty-free products and restaurants: users rated items from a directory of over 1.3 million businesses in 183 countries, and each review triggered a 10-cent-to-$1 donation to a charity of the reviewer's choice.
How it started
Vikas Garg founded Abillion in Singapore in 2018 around a simple loop: write a plant-based review, do good. Its stated goal was to motivate one billion people toward plant-based living, and the directory of vegan-friendly products and restaurants grew to more than 1.3 million businesses in 183 countries.
What happened
Abillion raised more than US$17M, including a US$10M Series A led by New York's 1/0 Capital in Dec 2021 to build a peer-to-peer marketplace inside the app. It passed 1M downloads and, by Dec 2025, 2M+ active members, and by mid-2023 had donated $2.8M through 150+ charities. But the sector's funding collapsed — plant-based companies raised $3.8B in 2021 but only $342M in 2024 — and AI chatbots began replacing review apps as discovery tools.
How it ended up
In a late-March 2026 newsletter and LinkedIn post, Abillion said it would shut down by the end of the month, taking the app and website offline. It said the team had hit its best-ever metrics and explored every path but could not overcome the fundraising environment; founder Vikas Garg said the mission would live on.
Background
Abillion, founded by Vikas Garg in Singapore in 2018, was a review app for vegan and cruelty-free products and restaurants. Users rated items from a directory of more than 1.3 million businesses in 183 countries, and each review triggered a $0.10–$1 donation to a charity of the reviewer's choice — turning engagement into measurable impact.
The bet was that this reviews-for-charity loop would make Abillion the default discovery layer for plant-based food, and that its engaged community could later be monetized as a peer-to-peer marketplace. It raised more than US$17M — including a US$10M Series A led by 1/0 Capital in Dec 2021 — passed 1M downloads, and reached 2M+ active members by Dec 2025, with $2.8M donated through 150+ charities by mid-2023.
But plant-based funding collapsed from $3.8B raised sector-wide in 2021 to $342M in 2024, and AI chatbots began replacing review apps as the way people discover where to eat. In late March 2026 Abillion told subscribers and LinkedIn followers it would shut down by the end of the month, saying it had explored every path but could not overcome the fundraising environment.
What has to be true
- Reviews that funded charities created genuine engagement but no revenue — every post cost the company money instead of earning it.
- The marketplace conversion kept being deferred while sector funding fell from $3.8B to $342M a year, leaving no bridge round available.
- Discovery apps faced a structural threat from AI chat answers, shrinking the strategic value of a human-curated review directory.
- Impact investors funded the mission, but no later-stage capital arrived when the app most needed it, so closure became the only option.
What can be applied
Reaching two million active members and donating $2.8M proved the mission but not the business: without a paid product, Abillion had nothing to sell when its sector's capital window closed.
Aftermath
As of March 31, 2026 Abillion's app and website have gone offline after the company announced the shutdown in its final newsletter and on LinkedIn. Founder Vikas Garg says he will keep working to motivate people toward plant-based living, but no successor product or buyer was announced, and users' reviews and the business directory are no longer available. The $2.8M donated through more than 150 charities over the app's life is the durable record of what the community built.
Sources
- Vegan Discovery Platform Abillion Shuts Down Amid Funding Struggles & AI Threat
- Social Commerce Platform abillion Raises Funds For Product Development
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