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Kavin Bharti Mittal to shut down ‘Hike’
Bharti Enterprises scion Kavin Bharti Mittal, founder and CEO of Hike, said that he would be shutting down the 13-year-old startup after the Indian government’s recent ban on real-money gaming (RMG).
Kavin Bharti Mittal to shut down 13-year-old startup
This follows an earlier post on August 21, where Mittal announced that Rush, Hike’s real money gaming app, would shut down in India to go all in on the United States and other global markets, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, after the government passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act 2025.
Mittal’s Hike had raised around $261 million from marquee investors, including Tiger Global, Tencent, and Bharti Enterprises.
"After regrouping with our investors and the team, I’ve made the difficult decision to wind down Hike completely," Mittal wrote on Substack.
"Our US business, launched just nine months ago, is off to a strong start. But after the India ban, scaling globally would require a full recap, a reset that is not the best use of capital or time," he said.
Hike had around 100 employees and operated as a set of 'SWAT teams' globally across India, the United States, Dubai, Singapore, Kavin Bharti Mittal told Moneycontrol last month.
SWAT teams are small, highly skilled, and agile groups that quickly solve urgent or complex problems.
Hike originally started as a messaging app in 2016 to challenge WhatsApp, reaching 40 million monthly active users before shutting it down in January 2021.
The company later pivoted to building a casual RMG platform called Rush, featuring 14 money-based mobile games and incorporated Web3 technologies to enable user ownership and play-to-earn mechanics.
In the post, Mittal said that "RMG was never the destination" and was instead a "way to test unit economics and traction in India while working toward a bigger vision"
"In hindsight, starting in India locked us into the model and regulatory headwinds, turning a temporary path into a more permanent one," he added.
Mittal remarked that the "vision for Gaming Nation is real", though perhaps ahead of its time. "The world will eventually move toward a Nation-type model in gaming and Web3 - Company 2.0. But crypto regulation is still developing globally, and we don’t want to repeat India, where we hoped for clarity that never came," he said.
"There are more important problems to solve and bigger opportunities to deploy brilliant talent and capital," he added.
After regrouping with our investors and the team, I’ve made the difficult decision to wind down Hike completely.
— Kavin (@kavinbm) September 13, 2025
Our US business, launched just nine months ago, is off to a strong start. But scaling globally would require a full recap, a reset that is not the best use of capital… pic.twitter.com/gzXG26fFtQ
For the unaware, Kavin Bharti Mittal is the son of Sunil Bharti Mittal, the founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, the parent firm of Bharti Airtel.