Hike rakes in $12m from exit of investment in Indian social gaming platform

Indian social gaming platform WinZo announced that it has given one of its early investors a complete exit for its May 2019 investment. Hike, the former messaging app and rival to WhatsApp in India, received US$12 million from the buyback of its shares.

Hike CEO Kavin Mittal / Photo credit: Hike

Hike had participated in the gaming app’s US$5 million series A round in 2019 and received 4x returns within a span of 18 months, WinZo said in a statement. This means that Hike had initially invested about US$3 million in WinZo to get US$12 million.

The exit comes after Hike shut down its primary messaging business in January and launched Rush, a gaming app that’s similar to WinZo. The deal is also one of the largest buyback transactions by an early-stage startup in India’s ecosystem, according to WinZo.

New Delhi-based Hike was founded in 2012 by Kavin Bharti Mittal – the son of Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of telecommunications giant Airtel. In recent years, Hike has expanded to new areas such as no-frills phones and mobile entertainment. The younger Mittal had recently said that apart from Rush, Hike will continue to develop a social media app called Vibe.

After WinZo’s series B round in September 2020, it had reportedly waived the noncompete clause for Hike and withdrew access to the board and the company.

In April, WinZo raised an additional US$13 million in debt financing from existing investors such as Makers Fund, Courtside Venture, and Stephan Pagliuca, Bain Capital’s co-chair and an early backer of gaming major Epic Games. Six months earlier, these investors led the US$18 million series B round for the company, taking the total fundraise tally to US$38 million.

In November 2020, WinZo introduced a US$5 million fund aimed at developing India’s game development landscape.