The Kik messaging app is on its final legs. In a message posted on Medium earlier this week, the company CEO announced that the company was set to close down which will leave more than 100 families in limbo as their loved ones lose their jobs.
Kik was recently sued for illegally raising $100 million.
The report stated:
From May to September 2017, Kik offered and sold one trillion digital tokens called “Kin.” More than 10,000 investors worldwide purchased Kin for approximately $100 million in U.S. dollars and digital assets – over half of this sum coming from investors located in the United States. However, Kik’s offer and sale of Kin was not registered with the SEC, and investors did not receive the disclosures required by the federal securities laws.
“These are hard decisions. Kik is one of the largest apps in the US. It has industry leading engagement and is growing again,” Kik Interactive CEO Ted Livingston wrote. “Over 100 employees and their families will be impacted. People who have poured their hearts and souls into Kik and Kin for over a decade. Together these changes will drop our burn rate by eighty five percent, putting us in position to get through the SEC trial with the resources we have.”
There is no official timeline for when the company will be shutting down.
As of May 2016, it was reported that approximately 40 percent of teenagers in the United States had installed the app and that there were 300 million registered users. Kik initially launched back in October 2010 and allows smartphones to send messages, photos, and videos through their WiFi services. In just one two weeks after its initial release, thanks to the help of promotion on Twitter, there were a reported more than one million users.
Rather than continuing the Kik messaging service, the company will turn its attention to its cryptocurrency kin, which was at the center of its lawsuit that initially led to the service’s downfall.