After years, Hike is back in the headlines. But this time, not for the reasons you might expect. It’s not because the company raised millions in funding. It’s not because it generated massive revenues or announced global expansion. The news is regarding the announcement “Hike is shutting down its business worldwide.”
Now, you may be thinking: Wait, wasn’t Hike already dead? The answer is no. In fact, as per the recent announcement, the CEO revealed that Hike still had an active user base of over 4 million and had generated more than $500 million in the last four years. Surprising, isn’t it? A company that had almost vanished from the buzz managed to stay alive in the background until now.
So, what exactly happened? How did a startup once hailed as India’s answer to WhatsApp, valued at billions, and backed by marquee investors, end up closing business? To understand the full picture, let’s rewind a bit. First, let’s look at what Hike really was, then why it shut down its main business, how it tried to pivot, and finally, why the story ends here.
Hike was launched in 2012 by Kavin Bharti Mittal, son of Sunil Bharti Mittal, the founder of Bharti Airtel. Backed by marquee investors like SoftBank, Tiger Global, Tencent, the app quickly made a name for itself by offering localized features such as stickers in Indian languages, privacy tools, and offline messaging via SMS.
At a time when WhatsApp was still relatively less familiar, Hike positioned itself as a cool, youth-focused alternative. Its rapid rise started in 2016, when Hike raised $175 million and was valued at $1.4 billion, making it India’s youngest unicorn at the time. With over 100 million users, it seemed like a strong challenge to WhatsApp’s dominance.
But network effects are something that drives these social media apps. By 2016, WhatsApp had already built a strong user base of about 160 million. As more people started using WhatsApp, Hike’s value proposition weakened.
It tried to reinvent itself as a “super app” by bundling payments, news, and games within its platform. However, competition from Paytm in payments, Dailyhunt and others in content, and the users preferring WhatsApp meant that Hike could not establish leadership in any of these categories. By 2018, its user base began dropping, and by 2019, it was clear that the company had lost the messaging war.
In January 2021, Hike officially announced the shutdown of its messaging service. But this is what most people think: the game is done, and it’s closed. No, this is a turning point for the company. How?
With its core business gone, the company pivoted to a new opportunity: online gaming. It launched Rush by Hike, a real-money gaming platform offering casual games like ludo, carrom, and cricket where players could compete and win cash prizes.
Kavin Mittal thought and envisioned this as part of a larger web3 and gaming ecosystem, where they combined skill-based play with NFTs and digital communities. This actually gave them a second chance. India’s gaming industry was booming, venture capital was flowing into gaming startups, and Hike found itself with the chance of success.
After this, it worked for a while, and Rush claimed over four million monthly active users and seemed to be gaining traction. But this time, they had a proper user base, but the problem started from regulators.
The first problem is in 2023-24, when the government put a 28% GST tax on real money gaming, which made the business very difficult to run. But still they managed to run, and later some states started banning real money games. So, the pressure continued. But the recent bill that passed in August, which led to the closure of many real-money gaming apps, has also affected the business of Rush.
And so, in 2025, after 13 years, the company announced its final shutdown. During this announcement, the CEO has shared some insights and lessons as well. In his final note, Kavin Mittal shared some honest thoughts. He said that Hike, in all its forms, had grown to 10 million users and made around $500 million in revenue over four years.
At its peak, Hike Messenger had 40 million monthly users and was one of India’s most loved brands. But even with all this, the constant fight with rules and taxes made him ask one question: Is it worth it? And for the first time in 13 years, his answer was no.
Mittal also said Hike still had about $4 million left in the bank. This money will be used to pay employees and vendors, and whatever is left will go back to investors. He made it clear that real-money gaming was never the final goal, and it was just a way to prove the business could work and then build something bigger. But because of the tough rules and bans in India, that dream had to stop.
Even he said Hike was maybe ahead of its time in thinking about a “gaming nation” and that the journey gave him many lessons. Now, he wants to explore new areas like artificial intelligence, energy, and personal growth. He ended with a simple but powerful line: “This chapter ends, but the climb continues.”
And that is exactly what we as startup enthusiasts and entrepreneurs should consider as a key lesson in our journey. And at the end remember, Hike’s story has many lessons for entrepreneurs. It shows that even if you have millions of users, big investors, and a billion-dollar value, it may still not be enough. Market timing, customer habits, and government rules can change everything. Hike lost to WhatsApp in messaging and later to strict rules in gaming.
So, let’s see how Kavin Mittal will give a strong comeback.
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