{"id":12693,"date":"2025-09-14T14:32:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T14:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/14\/bye-bye-hike-kavin-mittals-messaging-app-becomes-latest-casualty-of-real-money-gaming-ban-business-news\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T14:32:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T14:32:57","slug":"bye-bye-hike-kavin-mittals-messaging-app-becomes-latest-casualty-of-real-money-gaming-ban-business-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/14\/bye-bye-hike-kavin-mittals-messaging-app-becomes-latest-casualty-of-real-money-gaming-ban-business-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Bye Bye Hike: Kavin Mittal\u2019s Messaging App Becomes Latest Casualty Of Real-Money Gaming Ban | Business News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Kavin Bharti Mittal announces the shutdown of Hike Messenger after 13 years, citing challenges post India Ban.<\/h2>\n
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Kavin Bharti launched Hike in 2012.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Bharti Airtel group scion <\/span>Kavin<\/span> Bharti Mittal has announced to wind down India\u2019s messaging app, a competitor to WhatsApp, after its 13-year journey.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter regrouping with our investors and the team, I\u2019ve made the difficult decision to wind down Hike completely”, said <\/span>Kavin<\/span> Bharti Mittal in his <\/span>Substack<\/span> post.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mittal<\/span> further said that after India Ban, scaling globally of the messaging platform would require a full recap, which he called \u201cnot the best use of capital or time”. <\/span>\u201c<\/span>For the first time in 13 years, my answer is no. Not for me, not for my team, and not for our investors,” Mittal added. <\/span><\/p>\n

H<\/span>e said <\/span>that US business, which was launched nine months ago, is performing well. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sharing the 13-year journey in the post, Mittal said Hike Messenger reached 40M MAUs and became the 35th most loved consumer brand in India at its peak. <\/span><\/p>\n

He said that with Rush, they built a new kind of Casual PvP gaming platform and scaled it to 10M users and $500M+ in gross revenue (CEA) in just 4 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hike was launched in December 2012 by Kavin Bharti Mittal as India\u2019s answer to WhatsApp, with the vision of creating a homegrown messaging platform tailored to Indian users. Backed by Bharti Enterprises and early investors like SoftBank, it quickly gained traction among the youth, crossing 100 million downloads within a few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo everyone who has been part of this journey \u2013 our users, our team, our investors, and our community \u2013\u00a0thank you. As a CEO, you\u2019re only as strong as your team, and I want to give a special shout-out to mine \u2013 an incredible group of people who gave this everything (Hike),” Mittal noted.<\/p>\n

Hinting at his upcoming plans, Mittal said that he will help build the future, where willpower is infinite, energy is abundant, and intelligence is at our fingerprints. \u201cThis is the future I will help build <\/span>\u2014 and it\u2019s where I\u2019ll be contributing in the decades to come. This new chapter will look very different from the last on<\/span>e,” Mittal added. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Varun Yadav<\/a><\/p>\n

Varun Yadav is a Sub Editor at News18 Business Digital. He writes articles on markets, personal finance, technology, and more. He completed his post-graduation diploma in English Journalism from the Indian Inst…Read More<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Varun Yadav is a Sub Editor at News18 Business Digital. He writes articles on markets, personal finance, technology, and more. He completed his post-graduation diploma in English Journalism from the Indian Inst… Read More<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

First Published:<\/span><\/p>\n
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September 14, 2025, 09:54 IST<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

News<\/a> business<\/a> Bye Bye Hike: Kavin Mittal\u2019s Messaging App Becomes Latest Casualty Of Real-Money Gaming Ban<\/span><\/div>\n
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Last Updated:September 14, 2025, 09:54 IST Kavin Bharti Mittal announces the shutdown of Hike Messenger after 13 years, citing challenges post India Ban. Kavin Bharti launched Hike in 2012. Bharti Airtel group scion Kavin Bharti Mittal has announced to wind down India\u2019s messaging app, a competitor to WhatsApp, after its 13-year journey.\u00a0 \u201cAfter regrouping with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}