EXCLUSIVE: Hike’s RGU hits $100 million in annualised gross revenue with eyes on $200 million by the end of the year

• Hike’s Rush Gaming Universe has clocked in $100 million in annualised gross revenue since launching in March 2021.
  
• RGU plans to double its revenue by the end of the year, according to Hike’s CEO and founder Kavin Bharti Mittal.
  
• In an exclusive interview with Business Insider, Mittal explains how reaching that target involves NFTs, new games and new features.
  

Hike’s mobile-only gaming platform, The Rush Gaming Universe (RGU), has hit $100 million in annualised gross revenue in 15 months since going live. According to Hike’s founder, Kavin Bharti Mittal, the game is likely to double its gross revenue before the end of the year.


“A large part of it is double down on the NFTs we launched a couple of weeks ago. And, increasing their spread across the application,” Kavin Bharti Mittal told Business Insider in an exclusive interview.

The bite-sized gaming application currently has 10 games. According to Mittal, another four will be added in the next quarter. RGU also plans to introduce tournaments and a leaderboard feature in the coming months as well.

Web2 & Web3

RGU launched its whitepaper last month, in which the platform highlights its underlying aim to create new economic opportunities for its community. “We’re very excited about that. It’s a new way of operating in web2. In web3, you’re completely transparent and out there,” Mittal told Business Insider.

The roadmap for the coming year includes the launch of a ‘Special Access NFT’, a token, and the creation of an NFT marketplace.

“Our goal is to embed the NFTs deeper into the gameplay to show people within the application that this is a real asset. That you can play with it and also unlock new economic opportunities,” explained Mittal.

Despite the recent economic downturn, Mittal remains optimistic that RGU will be able to weather the storm. According to him, unlike crypto exchanges – like Coinbase and Gemini who have been laying off employees – gaming within the scope of play to earn (P2E) will actually end up posing an opportunity, akin to what happened with Axie Infinity during the pandemic. “Gaming becomes a way for people to unlock economic opportunity,” he said.