Hike Messenger raises funding from Silicon Valley veterans

New Delhi: Home-grown Hike Messenger on Tuesday said it has raised an undisclosed funding from Silicon Valley veterans like Quora founder and CEO Adam D'Angelo, Dropbox's Vice President Aditya Agarwal and WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg.

Ruchi Sanghvi, former Vice President Operations Dropbox, has also invested in Hike which is run by Kavin Mittal, son of Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal. Some of the world's top notch tech veterans have invested in the company in their personal capacities and are playing advisors to it, Hike said in a statement. The details of the funding were, however, not disclosed.

The company has raised USD 86 million from Tiger Global and BSB till date. "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," Kavin Mittal said. Each of the them brings with him/her a core area of expertise, which Hike finds immensely useful, he added. Hike's platform, which has 70 million users, facilitates over 30 billion messages per month. It competes with the likes of WhatsApp, LINE and Viber in India.

Over the last year, Hike has brought on board brands like PepsiCo, Amazon, Unilever and Zynga. "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," Mullenweg said.