Sunday, November 24

Hike raises undisclosed funding from founders Of Quora, WordPress & other Silicon Valley veterans

NEW DELHI: Indian messenger app, Hike, has raised undisclosed funding from a number of tech veterans, including Quora founder, Dropbox’s Vice President Engineering Aditya Agarwal, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Ruchi Sanghvi, VP Dropbox.

“It’s great to have the world’s top brains in tech share Hike’s vision; and not just entrust us with their investment, but more importantly, also advise us on our product and strategy. Each of the them brings with him/her a core area of expertise, which we at Hike find immensely useful as we aggressively grow in India,” Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO, Hike Messenger, said in a statement.

“India is close to our hearts and we understand the challenges faced by the billion plus people of India. It’s quite clear that messaging is playing a key role in bringing people online in a mobile first market like India and Hike Messenger has begun to play a pivotal role in that market. We are both aligned to Hike’s vision and are excited about what comes next,” Ruchi Sanghvi, ex-Vice President, Operations, Dropbox and Aditya Agarwal, Vice President, Engineering, Dropbox, said in a statement.

“As an online social media entrepreneur myself, I have keenly observed India. I believe in Hike Messenger’s vision and I can see the team gearing up and are well positioned for aggressive growth in the country,” Matt Mullenweg, Founder and CEO of Automattic Inc. and Co-Founder of WordPress, said.

 

The company so far raised $86 million from Tiger Global and Bharti SoftBank, the joint venture between Japan’s SoftBank and Bharti Enterprises. Launched in December 2012, Hike has seen phenomenal growth in India over these last 3 years, having acquired 70 million users and transacting over 30 billion messages per month.