Vietnamese podcast startup Waves has ceased operations and returned money to investors, Shiyan Koh, general partner of Hustle Fund, an investor, confirmed to DealStreetAsia in an email interaction.
In February, Waves had raised $1.2 million in a seed funding round led by Insignia Ventures Partners. The round also saw the participation of Hustle Fund, Skystar Capital, and a slew of Asian and Silicon Valley angel investors.
Founded by Kevin Gao and Ben Minh Le in 2019, Waves is an audio platform for emerging markets. The company has built a superapp for all audio content: user-generated audio, audiobooks, podcasts, talk shows, online radio, online education, TV/reality shows.
At the time of the fundraising in February, the company claimed it had developed over 30 original programmes, 50 content partnerships, and more than 500,000 other contents.
Gao is said to have stopped the development of Waves due to personal reasons. “We have loved working with Kevin and the team, and appreciate how he’s handled his stepping away from the business to deal with his personal situation. We would be happy to back Kevin in his next venture,” said Koh.
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