India’s Homegrown messaging App Hike today announced a Series D Financing of Over $175 Million Led by Tencent and Foxconn, this is One of the biggest fund raises in Indian Internet ecosystem. Tencent is a Chinese Investing Firm and foxconn is manufacturing firm.
Also Hike announced that now they are valued at a huge $1.4 Billion through Series D funding. There are now 100 Million Users and 40 Billion Messages are sent/received Per Month. In January 2016, Hike had announced that it has a user base of a 100 million users. 95% of Hike users are based in India and 90% of them are young and below the age of 30. Hike users, on an average, exchange 40 Billion messages per month and spend 120 min. per user per week on the platform. Hike has been built for these young consumers around 3 key pillars:
- Local Expressive Content
With 10,000+ stickers available in 40 languages, themes and multi-lingual user interface. The Platform includes News in English and Hindi, Games (Beta) on Hike, Live Cricket, Coupons, Just for Laughs and Hike Daily. The availability of the Platform adds to this piece as it makes relevant local content available for customers to enjoy and share with their network of friends.
- Emphasis on Privacy
includes the innovative feature Hidden Mode that hides chats quickly and elegantly and Favorites so customers can choose who sees last seen, display pictures and status updates.
- Data Constraints
Features such as Hike2SMS and Hike Direct are built for India. Hike2SMS helps send free SMS when there is no internet connectivity and Hike Direct helps share files without the use of internet.
Speaking on the occasion, Founder and CEO, Hike Messenger, Kavin Bharti Mittal said, “I’m thrilled to announce this new milestone in our journey. Tencent and Foxconn both have pedigrees that speak for themselves and such an investment especially in today’s market just goes to show the strong foundation on which Hike is being built. The new fund raise is going to allow us to push Hike to greater heights and invest in areas that will be key to our long term vision and success”.
With a lot of features extra compared to Whatsapp, which App would you use or which messaging App are you using?, let us know in comment section below.
