Hike, one of India's earliest unicorn startups that once sought to rival WhatsApp, has officially shut down following India's blanket ban on real-money gaming (RMG).
The decision marks the end of a 13-year journey for the startup founded by Kavin Bharti Mittal, son of Airtel founder Sunil Bharti Mittal. Once valued at $1.4 billion and backed by global investors including Tiger Global, SoftBank and Tencent, Hike has now become one of the biggest casualties of India's tightening stance on gaming.
Launched in 2012, Hike began as an instant messaging app designed for India's youth, offering stickers, themes and offline messaging in a bid to localize the WhatsApp experience. At its peak, the app boasted over 40 million monthly active users and ranked among India's most loved consumer brands.
Related: Voyager co-founder fined $750K after Chapter 11 collapse
But when Hike Messenger shut down in 2021, the startup pivoted aggressively. First with Rush, its casual gaming app, and then with a broader Web3 vision, Mittal positioned Hike as a decentralized gaming and social platform.
By 2024, Hike's products were blending blockchain elements into gaming, exploring token-based economies and experimenting with NFTs and Web3-native monetization.
The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 imposed a nationwide ban on all categories of online money games, regardless of whether they were based on skill or chance. Citing addiction, social harm and national security risks, the law effectively dismantled India's $23-billion RMG industry overnight.
Hike's flagship platform Rush had amassed 10 million users and generated over $500 million in gross revenue in four years, but the ban made its business model untenable.
After shutting down operations in India, Hike founder Mittal confirmed that the company will now focus entirely on the U.S. and global markets.
Mittal explained that India's regulatory environment made it impossible to continue. "The Government of India has made its position clear: RMG will not be allowed to exist in the country," he wrote, citing GST hikes and the recent blanket ban on online money gaming.
Mittal said the first warning signs came when India chose not to embrace crypto:
"For years, the promise of Web3 ownership -- the very foundation of what we're building -- has remained uncertain here."
By contrast, he said the U.S. as a far better place to build: