Analysis

From Hike to Rush: Is Kavin Mittal’s gaming pivot working?

Soumya Gupta

December 15, 2022 | 8 Min Read

In January 2021, Hike began building a web3 casual gaming platform called the Rush Gaming Universe. Nearly two years on, the company has launched 12 games and raised funds from a clutch of web3-focused investors. Actually implementing its web3 plan, though, won’t be straightforward.

Just over 6% of employees at Kavin Mittal’s Rush Gaming Universe remain from the team that built the company’s original product, messaging app Hike. And just like the team, nearly everything at the company has changed since 2021.

Hike has gone from 100 million users at its peak in 2016 to abandoning the peer-to-peer messaging business entirely. A failed pivot to a Metaverse-esqe avatar later, the company is now building a web3 casual gaming platform, Rush.

Ten years on from its inception, Mittal has recapitalised the business and raised a Series A funding round from a new set of investors to fund the company’s new mission. It is now valued at a fraction of its peak valuation of $1.4 billion in 2016.

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