ABOUT FOUNDER
A journey built from scratch.
Hey, I'm Aariv, the Founder, CEO, and CTO at MountainKid AI — MountainKid Innovations Private Limited — as well as AlpKid Capital Private Limited and Phunsuk Travels Private Limited.
I'm based in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. As a self-taught programmer, I started my journey at age 20 with just ₹600 and built my dream from scratch.
I worked as a cleaner in Kullu at ₹2,000 per month, and later worked as a telecaller, writer, teacher and film industry worker. I eventually returned to software because technology can shape the world without limits.
In 2021, I built my seventh startup, Batch7, an online school focused on quality education for children. While working on the idea, I realized that a physical place for triggering ideas could help students and builders.
That led to TMK Cafe in Summerhill near HPU. TMK Cafe was built around innovation, engineering, health-first food and the arts. It began with ₹5,000 and generated approximately ₹30 lakh in revenue over 2.5 years.
The cafe was run completely by HPU students and became one of India's early health-first cafe experiments.
In 2023, I joined Confitence AI in San Francisco as a remote full-stack engineer. I worked on 3D technology applications for Sorabyrd, Susanamonaco, Zeronedesign and Westcoastleather.
After two years, I took a break from my software career and became a full-time founder of MountainKid Innovations, AlpKid Capital and Phunsuk Travels in Jakhu Hill, Shimla.
Today, we are building products and infrastructure across health, tourism, education, finance and developer technology.
Sari explores health guidance and prevention. Phunsuk is working toward a better tourism ecosystem for Himachal. MountainKid is building Koel as infrastructure for identity, permissions, verification, maps and trusted data.
You can read more about the long-term vision behind MountainKid Valley on GitHub.
OUR JOURNEY & VISION
Building an open internet.
MountainKid Innovations is an engineering company building the infrastructure and applications needed for a more open internet — where users can own their identity, businesses can build on open infrastructure, and trusted information can move across applications instead of being locked inside closed platforms.
We build from first principles.
WHAT MOUNTAINKID IS
Technology should give people more control.
Our current work explores this mission through technology in health, tourism, education, finance, agriculture and developer infrastructure.
We build both infrastructure and applications. The applications help us understand real problems. The infrastructure gives other builders the tools to solve their own.
Our long-term goal is simple: build technology that gives more power to people and builders, and less power to closed intermediaries.
THE INFRASTRUCTURE LAYER
Koel
Infrastructure for the open internet.
Koel brings together the foundational services modern applications repeatedly need: authentication, permissions, identity verification, maps and trusted data.
The objective is not to create another closed platform. It is to give developers and businesses building blocks they can use to create their own applications.
Explore KoelWHY WE ARE BUILDING THIS
Another path is possible.
The internet was designed to connect people and information. But much of today's internet is controlled by closed platforms.
Users create the content, businesses create the services, and developers create the applications — yet the platform often controls the identity, data, distribution and relationship.
We want to build another path.
Not everything has to be controlled by one company.
THE LONG-TERM VISION
MountainKid Valley
A long-term physical and technological ecosystem for people who want to learn, build, experiment and create meaningful work.
The Valley brings together engineering, research, health, education, agriculture, food, creativity and community.
Read the visionMOUNTAINKID
│
OPEN INTERNET
│
KOEL
├── Auth
├── RBMS
├── Pass
├── Maps
└── Protocol
│
APPLICATIONS
├── Phunsuk
├── Sari
├── Wangdu
└── AlpKid
BUILD WITH US
Help build what comes next.
We are interested in people who want to work across engineering, research, product, design, health, agriculture, tourism and infrastructure.
We don't want to own the internet.
We want to build more of it.