Kavin Bharti Mittal to close 'hike' to India's prohibition on rights-money games: 'Not the best use of capital or time ...'

Kavin Bharti Mittal, Bharti Airtel Promoter Group family, Kavin Bharti Mittal, son of Sunil Bharti Mittal, announced in a position on social media that, with the team and investors, he decided to make HEke’s operations completely disappear after India’s new prohibition. In a LinkedIn post, Kavin Bharti Mittal explained how nine months ago the company launched its operations in the United States, but after the recent ban of India, the company will have to execute a ‘full version’. Mittal said that this ‘recovery’ in the operations would be the best use of their time and money. “After regrouping with our investors and the team, I made the difficult decision to completely ward off the hike,” he said. “A recovery that is not the best use of capital or time. ‘The online spelling law, which was approved in August 2025, prohibits all online games involving financial transactions. Mittal on the ban on Real Money Games in India in an earlier newsletter for his readers, Kavin Bharti Mittal, expressed his ‘disappointment’ on behalf of the entrepreneurs, developers and teams across the country for investing ‘billions of dollars investment’ in the sector. The newsletter, released on August 21, 2025, also mentioned that although Mittal was disappointed, it understood the government’s decision for society in general. “We understand and respect the government’s decision to take a moral stand on what he believes is right for society. Policy is complicated, and democracies often involve hard trade -in,” says Mittal. This announcement also stated that the company is hampering its operations in the India and is large for the US market. However, on September 13, 2025, Mittal announced that the team and investors’ decision to “” completely “disappear.” Hike’s Real Money Game Business Hike aimed to build a game economy where players can play and earn to grow in the networks they create, according to the company’s LinkedIn data. In August 2021, Hike gained capital from investors in the marquee tent such as Tinder’s Justin Mateen, Cred’s Kunal Shah, Softbank Vision Fund, Binny Bansal (co-founder of Flipkart), Kunal Bahl of Snapdeal, among others. With 110 employees, the company worked remotely, spreading over 30 cities in India. Hike, who originally started as a message program, was closed in 2021. After this closing, the company started working on a real game business called ‘Rush’. This business contains 14 money-based mobile games for users to play, enabling them with web3 technologies and a play-to-earnings business model. “With Rush, we built a new kind of casual PVP game platform and scaled it to 10 million users and $ 500 million+ in gross income (CEA) in just 4 years,” Mittal said in his recent LinkedIn post. With the announcement of the final downtime, Mittal said that his learning from this experience is “invaluable” and that it is a chapter for him, but he looks forward to the ‘climb’ ahead. “It’s a disappointment and a loud outcome. But I choose to look on the bright side: The ladder is invaluable, and my conviction for what is next is even stronger,” says Mittal.