Hike, once one of the most beneficial startups in India with unicorn status, has turn out to be the latest victim of a recent game ban in Nowy Delhi, along with the company-led by Kavin Bharti Mittal, son of the founding father of Airtel Sunila Bharti Mittal-Teraz closing.
On Saturday, the founding father of Hike, Mittal (pictured above) said that the American startup, which began nine months ago, was “at a strong beginning.” He said, nonetheless, that scaling it throughout the world would require a “full summary, reset, which is not the best use of capital or time.”
Initially launched as an information application competing with WhatsApp in 2012, in recent years Hike has turned to real games, with its fundamental platform, Rush, offering free games akin to Carrom and Ludo, after the end of Messenger in 2021, Rush attracted over 10 million users and generated greater than $ 500 million at gross revenues.
Corridge investors, including Tiger Global, Softbank and Tencent, supported the early Hike ambition to participate in WhatsApp with the application for sending youth -oriented messages. The startup was valued at $ 1.4 billion in 2016.
“We could raise capital, but the real question is: is it worth it? Is it a climbing worth trading?” Mittal wrote in the type of a suback. “For the first time in 13 years, my answer is not. Not for me, not for my team, not for our investors.”
Last month, the Indian government shocked $ 23 billion in the game industry with real money, introducing the promotion and regulation of the online games act, 2025, which imposed a general ban on such platforms. The federal government said that the decision was aimed at resolving cases of injury, including cases in which individuals supposedly died suicide after losing money in these games.
In response, the best industry players, including Dream Sports and Mobile Premier League (MPL), began to exclude their game operations in India. While some began to rotate recent projects akin to Micro-Drammas AND financial servicesOthers began to discover international markets to maintain some of their game corporations alive.
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The transfer also caused a wave of dismissals, and about 2,000 losses of jobs reported in various corporations Games24x7IN Head Digital WorksIN MPLAND Zupee. Some of them plan to reduce to 90% of their workforce when they struggle to adapt or leave the space, TechCrunch sources informed.
Some VC corporations supporting these startups also questioned their founders whether there have been any early signs of regulatory activities – and if so, why no steps were taken to relieve influence, the sources knowing the conversations informed TechCrunch.
At the starting of this week, the Indian Supreme Court He moved all difficult petitions New law – whose rules have not yet been notified – from many state courts throughout the country. However, the Supreme Court has not yet began to hear this case.
“This is both a disappointment and a difficult result. But I decide to look at the bright side: Sciences are invaluable, and my belief about what is even stronger,” Mittal wrote.