Hike Messenger, an Indian rival to Facebook’s WhatsApp, has achieved “unicorn¹” status after Tencent and Foxconn joined a fresh funding round that valued the business at $1.4bn.

腾讯(Tencent)和富士康(Foxconn)参与了Hike Messenger的新一轮融资，这轮融资对该公司的估值达到14亿美元。这家与Facebook旗下WhatsApp竞争的印度公司，也因此获得了“独角兽”身份。

The $175m in financing has made the company one of India’s most valuable technology start-ups just three years after launch. International investors² have backed the business to follow in the footsteps of WeChat in China and Line in Japan in building viable⁴ messaging businesses in a large local market.

这轮1.75亿美元的融资，令该公司在创立仅三年后就成为印度估值最高的科技创业型企业。国际投资者对该公司投资，为的是支持它追随中国微信(WeChat)及日本Line的脚步，在庞大的印度国内市场打造能够持久发展的即时通信业务。

India’s start-up scene has attracted international investors such as SoftBank, the Japanese technology group, and Tiger Global, the New York-based fund manager, both of which backed Hike Messenger in previous funding rounds and participated in the latest financing.

印度创业型企业所呈现的景象，已吸引日本科技集团软银(SoftBank)和纽约基金管理公司老虎环球基金(Tiger Global)等国际投资者。这两家公司在Hike Messenger此前的几轮融资中都曾出资，同时也参与了最新这轮融资。

There have been concerns that the Indian market is in danger of overheating as the influx⁵ of funding risked overvaluing companies, but the success by Hike Messenger shows that there is still appetite among new investors.

有人担心，在资金流入可能导致企业价值被高估之际，印度市场存在过热的危险。然而，Hike Messenger的成功表明，新的投资者对印度市场仍有投资兴趣。

Other Indian “unicorns⁶” — unlisted companies with a value of more than $1bn — include Flipkart, a rival to Amazon in India, and Ola, a local competitor to Uber.

印度的其他“独角兽”企业（即估值超过10亿美元的未上市企业）包括Flipkart和Ola。前者是亚马逊(Amazon)在印度的竞争对手，后者则是优步(Uber)在印度本土的竞争对手。

Tencent is the owner of WeChat, which has built up a base of half a billion users in China and will now look to work with the Indian business to help grow its customer base.

腾讯是微信的所有者，微信在中国已建立了5亿多人的用户群。如今，微信将寻求与Hike Messenger合作，以便扩大其用户基础。

Martin Lau, Tencent president, said that “Hike deeply understands India . . . a highly diverse market with many nuances”.

腾讯总裁刘炽平(Martin Lau)表示，“Hike很懂印度……印度是个高度多元化的市场，有许多需注意的细微之处”。

Hike was founded by Kavin Bharti Mittal, son of billionaire telecoms entrepreneur Sunil Mittal, who founded India’s largest telecoms company Bharti Airtel.

Hike Messenger的创立者是亿万富翁苏尼尔•米塔尔(Sunil Mittal)之子——凯文•巴蒂•米塔尔(Kavin Bharti Mittal)。苏尼尔•米塔尔创立了印度最大的电信企业巴蒂电信(Bharti Airtel)。

Mr Mittal said: “Tencent and Foxconn both have pedigrees that speak for themselves and such an investment especially in today’s market just goes to show the strong foundation on which Hike is built.”

凯文•巴蒂•米塔尔表示：“腾讯和富士康是多么重量级的投资者是显而易见的，这样的投资——尤其是在今天的市场——绝对有助于显示Hike的坚实基础。”

Bharti was an original investor³ in the messaging app. The start-up has raised $250m of investment in total as it built a customer base of 100m users who send 40bn messages a month.

巴蒂是这个即时通信应用最早的投资者。这家创业型企业在打造1亿用户群（这些用户每月发送400亿条消息）的过程中，总计已融得2.5亿美元投资。

However, Hike still trails far behind WhatsApp, which has 1bn users globally and counts India as one of its largest markets. Hike has tried to take the fight to its Facebook-owned rival with local content, including news in both English and Hindi and live cricket scores, as well as a privacy mode.

不过，Hike Messenger仍远远落后于WhatsApp，后者在全球拥有10亿用户，印度是其最大市场之一。Hike Messenger已试图用印度本土内容和隐私模式与WhatsApp对抗。这些本土内容包括英语和印地语双语新闻以及实时板球比分。

The service also uses a Bluetooth-type data transfer system that allows friends to share content between phones without incurring⁷ data charges over telecoms networks. It is estimated that about a third of smartphone users in India do not have a data connection.

Hike Messenger的服务还使用了一种蓝牙类型的数据传输系统，让用户不使用电信网络的收费数据流量就能与朋友分享手机上的内容。据估计，在印度大约有三分之一的智能手机用户没有移动数据连接。

The arrival of Tencent and Foxconn as investors in Hike is the latest sign that the largest Asihttps://creator.zoho.com/joe.russ/ftstyleguide/#an technology companies are still willing to bet on developing new services. Both have been active in making larger investments elsewhere in recent months.

腾讯和富士康成为Hike Messenger的投资者是表明亚洲大型科技企业仍希望押注于开发新服务的最新迹象。近几个月来，这两家公司都在积极地在其他地区开展更大规模的投资。

Tencent purchased Supercell, the Finnish maker⁸ of Clash of Clans⁹, last month for $10.2bn after buying out SoftBank’s majority stake in June, and the Japanese company in turn agreed to buy ARM Holdings for ￡24.3bn. Foxconn, which assembles the iPhone, completed its $3.5bn takeover of Sharp, the Japanese technology group, this week and also paid $350m to buy Nokia’s feature phone business from Microsoft in May.

6月份，腾讯买下了软银持有的Supercell的多数股权，这笔交易对这家制作《部落冲突》(Clash of Clans)的芬兰公司的估值为102亿美元。7月份，软银达成以243亿英镑的价格收购ARM控股(ARM Holdings)的协议。组装iPhone的富士康则在近日完成了对日本科技集团夏普(Sharp)的35亿美元的收购。富士康还在5月份斥资3.5亿美元，从微软(Microsoft)手中买下了诺基亚(Nokia)的功能手机业务。