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Kavin Bharti Mittal

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Kavin Bharti Mittal
Mittal at the Rise Conference 2016
Alma materImperial College London
Occupation(s)Founder and CEO of Hike Messenger
Known forHike Messenger
FatherSunil Mittal

Kavin Bharti Mittal is an Indian internet entrepreneur. He is known for having founded and led Hike Messenger, a now-defunct platform that was once the world's sixth-largest mobile messaging application.

Early life

Kavin Bharti Mittal is the son of Sunil Mittal and his wife Nyna Mittal. He has a twin brother Shravin and a sister Eiesha. Sharan Pasricha is his brother-in-law. Kavin Bharti Mittal studied for a master's degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Management from the Imperial College London. He was a part of the college go-kart and cricket team and a follower of Zen Buddhism.[1][2][3]

Career

Kavin Bharti Mittal worked as an intern at McLaren Racing, Google and Goldman Sachs while studying in London. While interning at McLaren Racing, he helped them embed a technology, that would show the track flags on steering wheels. He founded an app company called AppSpark, while he was in his final year at college in 2008. He also set up a movie-ticketing application called MoviesNow for IOS, in collaboration with movietickets.com. The app received recognition from Apple as 'One of the 10 Essential Movie Goer Apps'. He also developed an Foodster to suggest popular items on the menu, while visiting a restaurant.[1][3]

Kavin Bharti Mittal founded Hike Messenger on 12 December 2012. Hike received initial funding of $21 million from Bharti Softbank and $65 million from Tiger Global. Other Investors in Hike include Adam D'Angelo, Ruchi Sanghvi and Matt Mullenweg. Within 3 years, Hike has grown to become the largest Indian internet company by users—with a tally of 100 million users.[4] By July 2014, it was the most downloaded application on both the India Apple app store and the Google Play store for Android devices.[1][5][6]

A recent round of funding by Tencent and Foxconn has led to Hike being valued at $1.4 billion. Hike became the fastest Indian startup, and the only free application among the lot to be valued at over $1 billion. A 2015 study by Ericsson Consumer Lab said that 44 per cent of the respondents in India used Hike at least once in a month, compared to 98 per cent of the respondents for WhatsApp. Hike users also exchange 40 billion messages a month and spend 120 minutes a week on the app. According to him, Hike will start monetisation in 2019 after having a comfortable critical mass on the product.[7][8][9][10][11][12]

In January 2015, he acquired US-based VoIP company Zip Phone for an undisclosed amount. His Twitter account was hacked on October 2016, with the hackers sharing tips to lose weight on his Twitter page.[13][14]

Kavin was part of 35 under 35 Entrepreneur magazine 2016 list.[15] Kavin was also featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for 2017.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Kavin Mittal goes his own way". Forbes India. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  2. ^ "'Zen Buddhism makes India's most privileged startup founder cool about being a billionaire's son'". Quartz. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  3. ^ a b "Newsmaker: Kavin Mittal". Business Standard. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  4. ^ "Hike to experiment with monetisation this year, says Kavin Bharti Mittal".
  5. ^ "Climbing up with Hike: The journey of Kavin Bharti Mittal". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  6. ^ "'A billionaire's son designs an app to keep nosy parents at bay'". Quartz. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  7. ^ "Sunil Mittal & family". Forbes. Archived from the original on 29 November 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  8. ^ "'Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal's son Kavin betting big on mobile app Hike'". CNBC. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  9. ^ "'For Hike to win, WhatsApp doesn't have to lose: Kavin Bharti Mittal'". Mint. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  10. ^ "Hike vs WhatsApp: How the desi messaging app stacks up". Business Standard. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  11. ^ "'Hike Doesn't Compete With Whatsapp and FB Messenger: Kavin Bharti Mittal'". Bloomberg Quint. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  12. ^ "Is Hike Messenger worth the hype and $1.4 billion?". Times of India. Archived from the original on 19 September 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  13. ^ "India App Hike Buys U.S. Startup Zip Phone". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  14. ^ "Twitter account of hike CEO hacked". Dainik Bhaskar. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  15. ^ Sabharwal, Punita (2017-02-28). "Meet the Zen Billionaire of India - Kavin Bharti Mittal". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2017-11-29.
  16. ^ Wang, Yue. "Kavin Bharti Mittal, 29 - pg.1". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-03-19.
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