Bharti SoftBank buys remaining stake in location-based service Hoppr

Bharti SoftBank (BSB), a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Japanese Internet firm Softbank Corp, has bought the remaining stake in Gurgaon-based Y2CF Digital Media Pvt Ltd, owner of Hoppr, a location based check-in service that works across all mobile devices. Post the acquisition, Y2CF's CEO Mohammad Imthiaz has quit the firm.

The firm did not say if the remaining stake was acquired from Imthiaz or from a group of employee shareholders.

"Hoppr has set the tone for the hyper-local action in India such that the consumers and merchants benefit alike. It has been a wonderful journey and while I move on to pursue newer challenges, I am confident that the team under BSB's continued mentorship will scale greater heights," said Imthiaz.

"Having built and established Hoppr as an exciting product for the mobile, in a short span of four years, Imthiaz has decided to move on to pursue his interests outside of BSB. We would like to thank him for his immense contribution and wish him the very best for all his future endeavours. BSB is committed to growing Hoppr and will build on the foundation laid down by Imthiaz and his team," BSB said in a statement.

Y2CF was founded in 2010 by Imthiaz, former value-added services head of Bharti Airtel. In May 2012, BSB partnered with Y2CF to launch Hoppr and invested Rs 40 crore in the firm.

As per a report in The Economic Times, BSB had previously picked 49 per cent stake in Y2CF.

Y2CF had previously launched Musstbuy.com, a group buying platform offering location based deals in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune.

Headed by Kavin Bharti Mittal (son of Bharti Group honcho Sunil Mittal), BSB is also the owner of Hike, a peer-to-peer (P2P) messaging app that uses both data and SMS to deliver messages.