[Funding Alert] Polygon invests in Hike to bring its play-to-earn Rush Gaming Universe to Web3

Hike Founder and CEO Kavin Bharti Mittal today announced Ethereum infrastructure scaling solution Polygon is investing in the Hike team building Rush Gaming Universe (RGU) — a virtual world where players can play, compete, and win.

In a tweet thread, Kavin revealed Polygon — featuring an efficient Layer 2 Proof of Stake blockchain network — will be Hike's "on-chain partner to bring this vision to life (i.e. we're building on them)."

"Over the last few years, Ethereum has emerged as the TCP/IP for money for the internet. But it's got big challenges (Gas Fees, TPS & more). Polygon, an L2 chain sitting on Ethereum solves all of this with their scalability architecture. Working with a vibrant ecosystem is important, and with Polygon we're plugging into the vast Ethereum developer community," he said.

Kavin did not disclose the funding amount.

Why Polygon?

Polygon’s integration and investment look to further this growth by bringing RGU on-chain via the Polygon network. This will allow users to truly own in-game assets — represented by non-fungible tokens (NFTs), enable new Play-to-Earn and GameFi mechanics, allowing users to win more from the games they play. 

Sandeep Nailwal, Co-founder of Polygon, commented, “Web3 gaming is one of the fastest-growing economic sectors ever, and has the potential to be an important onramp for the next one billion users to come onto crypto. Hike’s Rush Gaming Universe is a hugely exciting development for the Indian market, with global potential beyond that, and we are delighted to be partnering to bring the platform on-chain.”

ALSO READ

Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal on how his Web 3.0 startup has become the playground for all Metaverse-building activities

Since Polygon fully supports the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), Hike reportedly stands to benefit from Ethereum’s network and its robust security. Further, over the last 12 months, the Total Value Locked (TVL) on Polygon has exceeded $12 billion, and the chain has over 350,000 daily active wallets.

Commenting on Hike's foray into game-building, Kavin said,

Gaming has always been an incredible source of entertainment, a way to bring joy to people’s lives. With the blockchain, going forward, it will also be a means to provide brand new economic opportunities to the world. We believe Gaming (and GameFi) will be an important onramp for next one billion users to come onto the blockchain."

Launched in December 2012, Gurugram-based Hike has shifted focus from messaging for the past couple of years and ended its messaging services last year.

In July 2020, it launched HikeLand, which lets users hang out and interact in a mobile-first virtual world, and laid out its plans for a gaming-focused platform.