Kik raises $98 million in Kin cryptocurrency token sale

Chat app Kik announced today that it has raised nearly $100 million from more than 10,000 people in its token distribution event. In fact, $42 million of the $98.8 million was raised in the first 48 hours of a sale that took place Sept. 12 – 26, a company spokesperson told VentureBeat in an email.

An additional $50 million was raised in late August in a token presale that included investors like Blockchain Capital, Pantera Capital, and Polychain Capital, all well-known blockchain-specific investment firms. The amount raised falls short of an initially stated goal by the Kin Foundation to sell 1 trillion Kin tokens for $125 million.

The Kin Foundation was created by Kik Interactive to distribute the currency.

Kin is an ERC20 Ethereum-based cryptocurrency that was created in May to encourage developer activity and user participation on the Kik chat app and bot store. It will be used as the primary currency on the chat app, meaning engagement generated by someone like a group chat leader or by an automated service like a bot will be compensated with Kin payment from the Kin Rewards Engine.

By adopting a cryptocurrency, Kik is distinguishing itself from competitors like Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and others that have begun to incorporate payments services like PayPal, as well as debit card payment options, into their chat platforms.

Other chat-based cryptocurrencies announced since Kin was created include Neurons from Doc.ai for health care, and Sense, from anonymous human advice company Sensay.