It’s been a tough run for Kik of late. The as soon as mighty messaging service introduced in late September that it might be shutting down its app. CEO Ted Livingston famous in a weblog submit that the startup can be trimming its headcount from over 100 individuals to “an elite 19 person team,” following a protracted 18 month battle with the SEC.
Today the service famous on Twitter, nevertheless, “Great news: Kik is here to stay!!!! AND there’s some really exciting plans for making the app even better. More details coming soon. Stay tuned.”
The information follows an October 7 tweet from Livingston that famous, “Some exciting news: we may have found a home for Kik! We just signed an LOI [letter of intent] with a great company. They want to buy the app, continue growing it for our millions of users, and take the Kin integration to the next level. Not a done deal yet, but could be a great win win. More soon.”
Along with the beforehand famous shutdown of Kik Messenger, the chief added that the far leaner crew can be shifting its focus to its cryptocurrency, Kin. “[N]o matter what happens to Kik, Kin is here to stay,” Livingston mentioned of the two-year-old foreign money on the time. “Kin operates on an open, decentralized infrastructure run by a dozen independent companies. Kin is a currency used by millions of people in dozens of independent apps.”
Kin was the topic of an SEC lawsuit earlier this yr, following its $100 million ICO elevate. “The SEC charges that Kik sold the tokens to U.S. investors without registering their offer and sale as required by the U.S. securities laws,” the fee wrote in June.
What the longer term finally appears to be like like for Kik continues to be very unclear following the pretty cryptic tweet. We’ve reached out to the corporate for remark.