Hike Messenger, also called Hike Sticker Chat, was an Indian freeware, cross-platform instant messaging (IM), Voice over IP (VoIP) application which was launched on 12 December, 2012 by Kavin Bharti Mittal and is now owned by Hike Private Limited. Hike worked offline through SMS and had multi-platform support. The app registration used a standard one time password (OTP) based authentication process. Hike is estimated at a value of $1.4 billion, with more than 100 million registered users and 350 employees. History Hike Messenger launched globally on 12 December 2012 by founder Kavin Bharti Mittal. Over the next couple of months, features such as free text messaging, themes, stickers, and a hidden chat option were introduced. The majority of users are from India with 80 percent under the age group of 25. After buying US based free voice calling company Zip Phones in 2015, Hike started providing free voice calling over cellular network and WiFi across the globe, before WhatsApp, by optimizing voice quality while using low bandwidth which packs more minutes per megabyte (MB) of data. The company purchased startups like TinyMogul and Hoppr in 2015. After getting 30 percent sticker usage traffic, Hike launched the 'Great Indian Sticker Challenge' on 5 March 2015 to create more stickers. Hike acquired InstaLively Livestreaming Pvt. Ltd in February 2017 which was behind the hyper local social networking app Pulse, that focused on instant audio and video digitization by using lower bandwidth speed which made it cost-effective for enterprises to create and broadcast content from any remote location. From version 5.0, it became the first social messaging app to start a mobile payment service in India. The timeline feature came back after multiple user requests and introduction of a personalized digital envelope called Blue Packets for sending monetary gifts through a built-in wallet. In 2017, acquisition of Bengaluru-based startup Creo was announced to enable third-party developers build services on top of Hike platform. From 2018, Hike decided to bring 1 billion users online by targeting tier-2 and tier-3 cities by giving more localized services. The company decided to dump the previous super app approach as of January 2019 and is now looking at launching multiple specialized apps for specific users. In May 2019, Hike announced collaboration with Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (IIIT-D) for developing artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), speech, link prediction, deep learning and computer