Tencent, Foxconn lead USD 175 mln investment in India's Hike

News Wireless India 16 AUG 2016
Tencent, Foxconn lead USD 175 mln investment in India's Hike
Hike Messenger, India’s homegrown mobile messaging platform, announced that it has raised a Series D financing of over USD 175 million, in a new funding round led by Tencent and Foxconn Technology Group valuing the company at close to USD 1.4 Billion. Existing investors Tiger, Bharti Airtel and the SoftBank Group also participated in this round. This is the fourth venture capital round and the biggest to date for Hike, taking the total investment to over USD 250 million so far. 

Started 3.5 years ago, Hike claims to be the biggest internet company in India in terms of users. In January, Hike announced that it had a user base of 100 million users, 95 percent of which are based in India and 90 percent of which are below the age of 30. Hike users, on an average, exchange 40 billion messages per month and spend 120 minutes per user per week on the platform. 

The company focuses on locally relevant content for the young consumers, including over 10,000 stickers available in 40 languages, news in English and Hindi, games, live cricket, coupons and comedy content. The messenger's 'Hidden Mode' hides chats quickly after posting, and 'Favorites' allows users to choose who sees last seen, display pictures and status updates. Hike2SMS helps send free SMS when there is no internet connectivity and Hike Direct helps share files without the use of internet. 

Categories:

Mobile

Companies:

Bharti Airtel,  Softbank,  Tencent,  Foxconn,  Hike

Countries:

India

Tags:

Messaging, IT - applications, Financial funding

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