Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo joins Index Ventures as partner, cofounds new fitness startup

Six months after stepping down as CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo has revealed what his next move will be, now that he’s handed control of the social network back to Jack Dorsey.

In a couple of tweets this morning, Costolo announced he’s cofounding a new fitness-focused startup with Bryan Oki, a man who was formerly cofounder and CEO of another fitness platform, called Fitify.

The new startup is a “software platform that reimagines the path to personal fitness,” and will be aimed at health professionals, coaches, and therapists working in the fitness realm.

https://twitter.com/dickc/status/689454657832226816

Costolo also revealed that he’s joining — as partner — venture capital (VC) firm Index Ventures, which has bases in San Francisco and Europe.

https://twitter.com/dickc/status/689455004998971393

It’s perhaps interesting to note the medium Costolo used to announce his news. While he did so on Twitter, he essentially used screenshots of an app that contained the full details of the news. This helps highlight one of the problems identified by current Twitter CEO Dorsey — the long-standing 140-character restriction. This will likely be removed, or at least modified to some degree in the coming months.

Costolo joined Twitter as chief operating officer (COO) in 2009, before going on to replace Ev Williams as CEO a year later. Prior to Twitter, Costolo was a product manager at Google, after the Internet giant acquired his company, FeedBurner, in 2007.