Hike’s 13-Year Journey
From Messaging Challenger to Gaming Exit
The startup ecosystem often celebrates stories of rapid growth, billion-dollar valuations, and bold pivots. Yet, equally instructive are stories of decline where timing, regulation, and shifting consumer behavior reshape trajectories. Hike, once touted as India’s homegrown answer to WhatsApp and later a fast-scaling real-money gaming platform, provides a fascinating case study.
Founded in 2012 by Kavin Bharti Mittal, son of Sunil Bharti Mittal (founder of Bharti Airtel), Hike experienced meteoric highs and painful lows across its 13-year journey. At its peak in 2016, the company commanded a $1.4 billion valuation, over 40 million monthly active users, and the backing of global heavyweights such as SoftBank Group Corp., Tiger Global, and Tencent.
But in September 2025, Mittal announced a complete global shutdown of the company including its US operations launched just nine months earlier.
What caused such a dramatic collapse of a once-celebrated unicorn?
This case study examines Hike’s lifecycle, from its founding as a messaging app to its pivots into stickers, social platforms, and finally, real-money gaming with Rush. It explores the interplay of strategy, market competition, regulation, and execution, offering insights into how startups navigate — and sometimes fail in — the fast-changing world of consumer technology.
Phase I: The Messaging Challenger (2012–2016)
Launch and Early Differentiation
Hike entered the Indian market in December 2012, positioning itself as a localized, youth-friendly alternative to WhatsApp. With Bharti Airtel’s network support and Mittal’s vision, Hike emphasized India-first features:
- Offline messaging: Delivering SMS when data was unavailable.
- Stickers and customization: Appealing to younger demographics with regional and expressive stickers.
- Privacy focus: Features like hidden chats and granular control.
This approach differentiated Hike from WhatsApp’s simplicity, gaining traction among students and young professionals.
Growth and Peak Valuation
By 2016, Hike had 100 million registered users (40 million monthly active users). With India’s smartphone penetration accelerating, investors saw a “super app” opportunity. In August 2016, Hike raised $175 million in a Series D round, led by Tencent and Foxconn, at a $1.4 billion valuation — joining India’s elite unicorn club.
This funding positioned Hike as India’s first serious messaging contender to WhatsApp, and the startup expanded aggressively with features such as:
- Hike Wallet (peer-to-peer payments, before WhatsApp Pay).
- Hike Direct (file-sharing without internet).
- Localized stickers in regional languages.
Yet, cracks soon appeared.
Phase II: The Unraveling of Messaging (2017–2020)
Competitive Pressures
WhatsApp’s dominance in India proved insurmountable. With 400+ million users in India alone, WhatsApp benefited from:
- Facebook’s capital and product integration.
- Simplicity and global network effects.
- Constant innovation, including voice, video, and payments.
Hike, in contrast, began to add too many features too quickly, leading to app bloat. Its attempt to become a “super app” confused users who primarily sought a reliable messaging experience.
Declining Engagement
Despite 100 million signups, Hike struggled to maintain consistent engagement. By 2019, user activity plateaued, and WhatsApp’s dominance only widened.
Recognizing its inability to win in messaging, Hike made the bold decision to shut down Hike Messenger in January 2021. Mittal’s announcement shocked many, but it was also pragmatic acknowledging that the “winner-takes-all” nature of messaging left no room for a second player.
Phase III: Pivot to Real-Money Gaming (2021–2024)
The Birth of Rush
Post-messaging, Hike sought to reinvent itself. In 2021, it launched Rush by Hike, a real-money gaming platform featuring casual games like Carrom, Ludo, and Pool with cash prizes. This was part of a broader bet on gaming + Web3, with play-to-earn mechanics and tokenized rewards.
Rush’s appeal was clear:
- Low-barrier games for Indian users.
- Real-money incentives, fueling virality.
- Integration of social features for engagement.
Traction and Revenue Growth
Rush scaled rapidly:
- 10 million users in India.
- Over $500 million in gross revenue across four years.
- Strong repeat engagement among gaming communities.
In parallel, Hike positioned itself as part of the Web3 frontier, experimenting with NFTs and digital assets tied to in-game rewards.
US Expansion
In late 2024, sensing regulatory headwinds in India, Hike launched Rush in the US market. With clearer frameworks like the Genius Act, the move seemed like a lifeline to replicate success globally.
But the timing was unfortunate.
Phase IV: The Regulatory Collapse (2025)
India’s Real-Money Gaming Ban
In 2025, the Indian government enacted the Real Money Gaming (RMG) Prohibition Act and a sweeping ban targeting cash-based online games. The act imposed:
- Outright restrictions on real-money casual games.
- Steep GST hikes (28%) on online gaming revenues.
- Limited industry consultation, creating regulatory ambiguity.
For Rush, which derived most of its users and revenue from India, this was catastrophic. Overnight, Hike lost its primary market.
US Market: Too Late to Scale
Although Rush’s US operations had potential, they had been live for only nine months. Without India’s revenue base, scaling in the US required a massive capital reset and raising hundreds of millions in new funding. In a tightening global VC environment, this proved impossible.
Why Hike Failed: A Strategic Analysis
The Pivot Problem
Hike’s story is defined by repeated pivots:
- Messaging → Stickers/social → Wallet → Gaming → Web3.
- Each pivot was logical given market conditions, but the lack of sustained focus diluted execution.
Winner-Take-All Dynamics
Both messaging and real-money gaming proved to be winner-take-all markets:
- Messaging: WhatsApp’s dominance left no oxygen for Hike.
- Gaming: RMG platforms faced high customer acquisition costs and reliance on regulation.
Regulatory Uncertainty
Unlike WhatsApp (benefiting from global network effects), Hike’s gaming pivot was hyper-sensitive to regulation. India’s abrupt policy shift destroyed years of growth.
Over-Reliance on India
Despite its ambitions, Hike never successfully built a global user base. Rush’s US expansion came too late, and the company remained overexposed to India’s volatile policy landscape.
Investor Expectations
With backing from SoftBank, Tencent, and Tiger Global, Hike faced constant pressure to pursue unicorn-scale returns. This may have accelerated risky pivots into spaces like Web3 gaming without stable foundations.
Comparative Lessons
Hike’s journey can be contrasted with:
- WhatsApp: Focus on simplicity, global scale, and network effects.
- Dream11 / MPL: Gaming platforms that diversified earlier and hedged against policy risks.
- Byju’s: Another Indian unicorn struggling with scaling and governance issues, showing how rapid growth without clarity can backfire.
Key Lessons for Entrepreneurs
- Focus beats feature creep: Hike’s attempt to be a “super app” diluted its messaging core.
- Regulation is existential: In gaming, fintech, or crypto, regulatory clarity is as important as product-market fit.
- Global-first mindset matters: Relying on India alone left Hike vulnerable to sudden bans.
- Capital can’t replace strategy: Even with billion-dollar funding, unclear vision undermines resilience.
- Timing is everything: Entering the US gaming market earlier might have provided diversification.
Hike’s story is neither a pure failure nor a wasted journey. For a time, it gave India its first homegrown unicorn messaging app, and later, one of its most innovative gaming platforms. Yet, market realities, regulatory shocks, and strategic pivots ultimately ended its 13-year run.
Kavin Bharti Mittal himself framed it best: building in India’s uncertain policy landscape is like playing a high-stakes game with unclear rules. While Hike could not survive, its trajectory provides lasting lessons on ambition, adaptability, and the risks of betting on emerging sectors.
As the Indian startup ecosystem matures, Hike’s story will be remembered not just as a shutdown, but as a case study in the complex interplay of innovation, capital, competition, and regulation in shaping the destiny of tech companies.
