Kavin Bharti Mittal announces the complete shutdown of Hike; says, 'Closing a chapter, opening a new one'

Kavin Bharti Mittal, son of Airtel's Sunil Bharti Mittal, said his 13-year-old startup Hike would close down entirely, marking the end of a company once touted as India’s answer to WhatsApp. 

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The decision follows the government’s recent ban on real-money gaming (RMG), a regulatory move that has upended business models across the gaming sector.

In a post on LinkedIn, Mittal, founder and CEO of Hike, said that while the firm’s US business had shown early traction since launching nine months ago, continuing operations globally would require a full recapitalisation. 

“After the India ban, scaling globally would require a full recap, a reset that is not the best use of capital or time,” he wrote.

Hike has about $4 million left on its balance sheet, which will be used for vendor payments and employee severance, with any remaining funds returned to investors.

Founded in 2012 as a messaging app, Hike at its peak boasted more than 100 million users before shutting down Hike Messenger in 2021. The company later pivoted into gaming and Web3, launching two products: Vibe, a community platform, and Rush, a real-money gaming service that scaled to 10 million users and generated $500 million in gross revenue over four years. Despite those gains, Mittal said recurring tax disputes, regulatory battles, and now the RMG ban made continuation untenable.

“RMG was never the destination. It was a means to prove unit economics and unlock the bigger vision. But we got locked into the Indian market in a tax/regulation battle,” he told investors. “For the first time in 13 years, my answer is no. Not for me, not for my team, and not for our investors.”

Hike had raised about $261 million from Tiger Global, Tencent, and Bharti Enterprises, among others. Mittal noted that while the shutdown was a disappointment, the lessons and networks built through Hike would inform his next chapter. He pointed to emerging opportunities in artificial intelligence, energy, and other frontier technologies.

The closure underscores a broader reckoning in India’s gaming industry following the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act 2025. Several players, including Mobile Premier League and WinZO, have scaled back or reoriented their strategies, while startups such as Zupee and Probo have seen their business models disrupted.

“This chapter ends, but the climb continues,” Mittal wrote, framing the decision not as a defeat but as a reset.