Mittal’s messaging service Hike raises Rs390 cr for expansion

Indian mobile messaging service provider Hike said today that it has raised $65 million (Rs390 crore) from investors led by New York-based Tiger Global, which it will use to enhance its product and expand its team.

Hike said its parent Bharti SoftBank, a joint venture between India's Bharti Enterprises and Japan's telecom firm SoftBank Corp, was the other investor in the new round of funding.

It did not specify Tiger Global and Bharti SoftBank's individual investments.

Hike, which competes with messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Line, said it has more than 35 million users, of which more than 90 per cent are from India.

India is the world's second-biggest mobile phone market after China by number of users. Smartphone sales have surged in the past two years after the launch of high-speed networks, making the country the world's third-biggest smartphone market.

Lee Fixel from Tiger Global will be joining the Hike board.

"This is a big milestone for us. We've almost doubled our user base, adding 15 million users in the last two months alone. With the new investment we're going to double. We now have the ammo to tackle the more audacious items on our list," Hike founder and chief executive Kavin Bharti Mittal, son of Bharti Enterprises chief Sunil Mittal, said.