No plans to make money for next 2-3 years: Hike CEO Kavin Mittal

Priyanka Sahay

Moneycontrol Bureau

Hike Ltd which owns messaging app Hike Messenger has no immediate plans to monetise and will focus on improving the product at least for the next 2-3 years, according to a senior executive.

"We are not going to monetise in the next 2-3 years. First of all our burn is very low ... we can spend some time in building our product ... which we believe will happen in the next 2-3 years and then focus on monetisation," said Kavin Bharti Mittal founder and chief executive of Hike Messenger.

Hike last week rolled out - 'Stories', a feature that allows users to share real moments with their friends through photos and videos. These stories vanish within 48 hours after being posted. Hike also announced its own camera feature built into the app. This makes it extremely quick for people to snap photos right inside of Hike.

The company entered the club of Unicorns (companies who have a valuation of over USD 1 billion) in August, this year after raising a USD 175 million round from Chinese Internet firm Tencent Holdings and Foxconn Technology Group of Taiwan, among others.

It though attracted criticism from multiple quarters for not being fit to be bracketed as a Unicorn. The company has no substantial revenue and claims to have 100 million users.

Responding to the criticism, Mittal said, "Our mission in life was never to be and is still not is to become a billion dollar company. That's not our mission." According to him, this is the time to focus on the product and expand user base.

"Tencent and Foxconn are very very big companies. These are guys who are the best in what they do. And if they are investing USD 175 million dollars in Hike at USD 1.4 billion valuation, there must be something to it," he added.

Hike also plans to initiate e-commerce transactions on its platform. Currently, there is little clarity however it could be on the lines of having an e-commerce, cabs avenues on the platform. However these features will take time.

"Sooner or later it will all come on Hike. Currently our focus on social is very very important. We hope by the end of 2017-early 2018, we can get all of that. There is a huge list of things we can do. It is not just about groceries, cabs or shopping but what we believe is right thing to do for our young audience," he said.

According to him, transactions will be a possible way of monetising the product, however that is in the long term. The recent fund raise of USD 175 million, he says will easily last for the next three years, given that the burn rate of the company is very low. He also referred to the virtual shopping of things like stickers on WeChat adding that there are a lot of avenues to monetise.

priyanka.sahay@network18online.com