SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — India’s answer to the popular messaging app WhatsApp, named Hike, today announced it has closed a $175 million funding round led by new investors Chinese internet giant Tencent and manufacturing firm Foxconn. The Series D funding of the four-year-old company gives it a valuation of $1.4 billion, founder and chief executive Kavin Bharti Mittal has revealed.
Tencent, the company which pioneered messaging with WeChat, is the name that should stand out. However, existing investors such as Tiger Global, Bharti and SoftBank also took part in the round, which takes Hike to more than $250 million raised to date. Hike added some strategic investors in the U.S. to its roster earlier this year, but its last major funding was experienced during the Series C round when it raised $65 million.
“Hike deeply understands India; a highly diverse market with many nuances. It is on a mission synergistic to ours, which is to enhance the quality of human life through internet services. With our investment, Hike will be able to leverage our deep domain expertise in the messaging platform space to provide more value to its users in India,” Tencent President Martin Lau said in a prepared statement.
Creating out of a joint-venture between Bharti and SoftBank, Hike includes the standard messaging app features you’d expect, as well as free voice calling and a few other twists. Hike has put an extreme emphasis on local users with features that include a privacy option to hide chat messages, in case a nosey relative gets hold of your phone as can happen in India. It also gives users the ability to send an SMS message to those who aren’t using the Hike app.
Targeting the younger demographic has been paramount in the company’s marketing campaigns.
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