India-based instant messaging app developer Hike has secured more than $175m in a series D round co-led by contract manufacturer Foxconn and internet company Tencent, Bloomberg reported today.
The round, which valued Hike at $1.4bn, included telecommunications groups SoftBank and Bharti Enterprises – existing investors in the company through their Bharti Softbank joint venture – and investment fund Tiger Global, Hike founder and CEO Kavin Bharti Mittal said.
Founded in 2012, Hike runs an instant messaging app with 100 million active users as of January this year and the company claims it is responsible for around 40 billion messages each month.
The service is available in seven languages and places a heavy emphasis on privacy, which makes it attractive to young users in what is relatively still a socially conservative society.
Hike’s app includes features for news, e-commerce and games, and the company hopes to leverage Tencent’s experience with its own messaging platform, WeChat, to help it integrate more fully with other services.
The series D capital will support investment in artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality and virtual reality technology, Mittal said.
Hike raised $65m in an August 2014 series C round led by Tiger Global that included Bharti Softbank, and followed it with an undisclosed amount of funding from private investors Adam D’Angelo, Matt Mullenweg, Aditya Agarwal and Ruchi Sanghvi in January this year.
Bharti Softbank had previously invested $7m in the company in 2013 before adding $14m in April 2014.