WhatsApp’s India rival Hike has raised $175 million in funding at a valuation of about $1.4 billion in a Series D round led by China’s Tencent and Foxconn, making it the latest tech “unicorn” in the country.
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Existing investors also participating in the round, Mr. Mittal said, included New York-based investment firm Tiger Global Management and Bharti SoftBank, a joint venture between India’s Bharti Enterprises and Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.
Martin Lau, President of Tencent on investment said, “With our investment, Hike will be able to leverage our deep domain expertise in the messaging platform space to provide more value to its users in India”. The money raised will bankroll bets on artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality and virtual reality, he said without outlining specific plans.
Kavin Bharti Mittal Founder and CEO Hike Messenger, “I’m thrilled to announce this new milestone in our journey”.
Indian smartphone users haven’t taken to Tencent’s WeChat messaging app, prompting the Chinese company to explore talks with Hike, which is seen as the local app that can best compete with Facebook Inc. -owned WhatsApp, Mint reported. It is on a mission synergistic to ours, which is to enhance the quality of human life through internet services.
Calvin Chih, CEO of Foxconn unit FIH Mobile, said messaging platforms have significant investment potential, particularly in a market like India, where most people will access the Internet for the first time on their mobile phones. “The team has reached an outstanding scale in a short span of 3.5 years”, he said. The investment gives Tencent an instant foothold in the Indian market.
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Hike Messenger is now valued at about $1.4 billion. Hike2SMS helps send free SMS when there is no internet connectivity and Hike Direct helps share files without the use of internet. WhatsApp has over 100 million monthly active users in India, which is also one of its biggest markets. While the survey isn’t definitive-its sample size was only 5,306-there’s little doubt that WhatsApp is now the most popular messaging app in the country.
