Hike, the moment messaging app-turned-gaming platform, is the newest addition to a rising roster of companies which can be winding down after the Indian authorities successfully banned the real-money gaming (RMG) sector by new laws.
Kavin Bharti Mittal, the founding father of Hike and son of Airtel’s Sunil Bharti Mittal, introduced on Saturday, September 13, that the corporate will stop all operations.
“We might elevate the capital, however the actual query is: is it price it? Is that this a climb price pivoting for? For the primary time in 13 years, my reply isn’t any. Not for me, not for my staff, and never for our traders,” Mittal wrote in a weblog put up. “That is each a disappointment and a tough end result. However I select to look on the brilliant aspect: the learnings are invaluable, and my conviction for what’s subsequent is even stronger,” he added.
First launched as a challenger to WhatsApp in 2012, Hike had since pivoted to providing real-money video games or video games whereby customers make a deposit with the expectation of incomes financial rewards on it.
The Promotion and Regulation of On-line Gaming Act, 2025, which got here into legislation final month, imposes a blanket ban on all classes of on-line cash video games (no matter whether or not they’re primarily based on talent or probability) whereas recognising and selling the event of esports as a reputable aggressive sport, alongside on-line social video games (that will cost subscription charges, supplied they don’t contain stakes or wagers).
Considerations over dependancy and its social fallout have been cited by the Centre as a key think about its choice to impose the ban on RMG companies, alongside nationwide safety considerations. In response to the ban, trade main gamers corresponding to Dream11, Winzo, and Zupee pulled the plug on their RMG choices and shifted focus to monetary companies, micro-dramas, and many others. Another firms proceed to supply real-money video games in markets like america, the place a blanket ban doesn’t exist.
Whereas Hike’s US enterprise, which launched 9 months in the past, has been off to a powerful begin, Mittal stated that “scaling globally would require a full recap, a reset that isn’t the very best use of capital or time.”
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Hike was first launched as a challenger to Meta-owned WhatsApp again in 2012. It reached over 40 million month-to-month lively customers and have become the thirty fifth most beloved client model in India at its peak, as per the corporate.
Hike’s daring wager to tackle WhatsApp with a youth-focused messaging app attracted a number of distinguished traders together with Tiger International, SoftBank, and Tencent. In 2016, the startup secured unicorn standing after it was valued at $1.4 billion. Nevertheless, Hike Messenger was formally sundown in 2021 as a result of the worldwide results have been too sturdy (except India banned Western firms), as per Mittal.
A yr later, the corporate launched Rush as its main platform the place customers might play informal video games corresponding to carrom and ludo, and win money prizes. “RMG was by no means the vacation spot. It was a strategy to take a look at unit economics and traction in India whereas working towards a much bigger imaginative and prescient. In hindsight, beginning in India locked us into the mannequin and regulatory headwinds, turning a short lived path right into a extra everlasting one,” Mittal stated on Saturday. Throughout its four-year run, Rush noticed over 10 million customers and generated greater than $500 million in gross income.
What subsequent?
On classes learnt from the corporate’s 13-year-run, Mittal urged different entrepreneurs to keep away from winner-take-all markets, construct for upcoming tech cycles, and search regulatory readability early.
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“The world will finally transfer towards a Nation-type mannequin in gaming and Web3 – Firm 2.0. However crypto regulation continues to be creating globally, and we don’t need to repeat India, the place we hoped for readability that by no means got here,” he stated. Mittal additionally highlighted AI and power breakthroughs as the following large alternatives.