Kavin Bharti Mittal announced the end of the Hike app after the Indian government banned online real-money games. “Our US business, launched just nine months ago, is off to a strong start. But after the India ban, scaling globally would require a full recap, a reset that is not the best use of capital or time,” read the LinkedIn post.
This announcement from Hike comes after a series of real-money gaming (RMG) applications decided to either shut down their operations or pivot to other businesses. Several RMG companies bore the brunt of the central government’s recently enacted Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025.
The India-born Hike Messenger, once a strong competitor to WhatsApp, had ended its instant messaging services in 2021 after giving in to competition from giants like Facebook Messenger (owned by Meta) and other popular messaging apps like Telegram. Announcing the end of its messaging vertical, Mittal had said, “India won’t have its own messenger.” Later that year, the company pivoted to online games, experimenting with Web 3.0 gaming experiences through Rush Gaming Service, which is no longer operational after the ban.
‘RMG was never the destination’
Despite the potential to raise capital, Mittal questioned the worthiness of pursuing the business. “Is this a climb worth pivoting for? For the first time in 13 years, my answer is no,” he said.
He also said that “real-money gaming” was never the destination. However, starting the business in India had made them stuck with India, especially with the “regulatory headwinds.” Extending the uncertainty of regulations, he said that “crypto regulation is still developing globally, and we don’t want to repeat India, where we hoped for clarity that never came.”
He was referring to Hike’s “nation-type gaming model” in Web 3.0. “Risk is fine; uncertainty is not,” he said while emphasising the lack of regulatory clarity.
In his LinkedIn blog post, he claimed that Hike Messenger had 40 million monthly active users and was the “35th most loved consumer brand in India at its peak.” He also said their gaming vertical, Rush, scaled to 10 million users and $500 million in gross revenue. Mittal cautioned others to be careful with winner-take-all markets and suggested not building products for the constraints of the present day.
Hike: The App with too Many Faces
Kavin Bharti Mittal launched the Hike Messenger on December 11, 2012, and subsequently introduced it in other Indian regional languages as well. By 2016, the messaging platform had reached 100 million users. The company claimed that 95% of its users at the time were from India. It also offered news-aggregating services in its messaging app as part of its language-localisation efforts.
Hike Messenger entered the gaming industry as early as 2015 by integrating Hoppr and Tiny Mogul Games into its application. In the same year, it also introduced Hike…
Source link
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We blogs.grocliq.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at [email protected]
