Tencent, Foxconn lead $175m round for India's Hike
Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings and manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group have led a $175 million funding round for Indian mobile messaging app Hike.
In a release, Hike said the new round values the company at $1.4 billion. Existing investors Tiger Global Management, India-based Bharti Enterprises and Japan's SoftBank Corp. also participated; Bharti and SoftBank are the founders of Hike through their joint venture Bharti SoftBank.
This is Hike's fourth funding round and its biggest since its launch in 2012. To date the company claims to have raised over $250 million, including a previous Tiger-led round in 2014 for $65 million. Hike will use the new capital for long-term research and improvements to its product.
Hike began as an internet messaging service similar to Whatsapp; the platform now incorporates news, shopping coupons and gaming. It has over 100 million users, the vast majority of whom are between 15 and 24 years old and live outside of cities. Features introduced to cater to this market include Hike2SMS and Hike Direct, which allow users to send free messages and share files, respectively, without internet access.
"Hike deeply understands India, a highly diverse market with many nuances," said Tencent President Martin Lau. "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."
More on South Asia
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.