Indian messenger app Hike has acquired Creo, which is a technology startup based in Bangalore, India. Both companies have declined to comment on the amount of acquisition.
Started by former Hike employees Sai Srinivas Kiran G and Shubham Malhotra in December 2013, Creo has already launched smartphones, streaming devices and an operating system. Its smartphone is called ‘Mark 1’ and the streaming device is called ‘Teewe’.
Commenting on the deal, a Hike spokesperson said, “The Creo team will begin work on a developer platform to enable third party developers to build services on the Hike platform.”
In Jan 2016, Creo had raised $3 million from Sequoia India, Beenext Ventures, and India Quotient to manufacture its smartphone, but after releasing the Mark 1 smartphone, the company confirmed that it will “no longer be making new CREO Mark1 devices or releasing any software updates.”
Founded in December 2012, Hike claims that now it has a user base of over 100 million. It had raised $175 million in fourth funding round from Tencent and Foxconn at a valuation of $1.4 billion.