Kavin Bharti Mittal son of Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal on Saturday announced the shutdown of his startup Hike after India’s blanket ban on real-money gaming. This decision signifies the conclusion of a project that had launched as a messaging app to compete against WhatsApp and eventually switched to gaming through its platform Rush. Who is Kavin Bharti? Mittal son of Sunil Bharti Mittal founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises revealed the decision in a blog on the online publication Substack. In a note shared on Substack Mittal stated “After regrouping with our investors and the team I’ve made the difficult decision to wind down Hike completely.” He said that although Hike’s US business which launched just nine months ago was growing strongly the India ban made it hard to scale globally. “Scaling globally would require a full recap a reset that is not the best use of capital or time” he stated. Sharing a post on X(previously Twitter) Kavin Bharti Mittal stated After regrouping with our investors and the team I’ve made the difficult decision to wind down Hike completely. Our US business launched just nine months ago is off to a strong start. But scaling globally would require a full recap a reset that is not the best use of capital or time. Hike debuted in 2016 as a messaging app that was intended to be a competitor to WhatsApp. The app was ultimately shut down in January 2021 and the company started developing an informal RMG (real-money gaming) platform known as Rush. The Rush app had 14 paisa-based mobile games with Web3 technologies to make ownership and play-to-earn opportunities a possibility. Rush its flagship platform offered 14 mobile games with money-based play and integrated Web3 features like user ownership and play-to-earn mechanics. The company was backed by some of the biggest global investors including SoftBank Tencent Tiger Global Bharti Foxconn Jump Crypto Tribe Capital Republic and Polygon. Famous individual investors such as Rajeev Misra Elad Gil and Zynga founder Mark Pincus were also on board. According to a news agency IANS report Rush had seen significant traction in India with 10 million users and over $500 million in gross revenue in just four years. The platform claimed more than 5 million players across its games and reported yearly winnings of around $480 million. According to Forbes Kavin Bharti Mittal’s father Sunil Mittal and his family are among India’s wealthiest billionaires. Their total net worth is $30.7 billion (approximately ₹270999 crore).