Geniuslink Acquires Social Shopping Site Kit From Patreon

Patreon, a platform where content creators and influencers can get memberships from fans, announced that it’s selling Kit.com’s assets to Geniuslink, according to a report by TechCrunch.

Kit is a social shopping site where influencers make up “kits” or bundles of items they recommend to fans. When fans buy the kit the influencer gets a commission. Kit currently has about 2.3 million monthly visitors.

Geniuslink calls itself a “bootstrapped intelligent short linking technology company out of Seattle, Washington.” The company said its main purpose is to “help creators earn more revenue with every link they share. Creators on Kit share thousands of products every day and we are excited to help these creators earn more to support their creative endeavors,” according to a blog post announcing the deal.

Kit.com has content creators like a YouTuber named Casey Neistat who picked his favorite camera peripherals, or podcaster Tim Ferriss showcasing his favorite equipment. Other YouTubers rave about the platform as well.

“As a creator that nerds out about gear with my audience and constantly gets asked for recommendations, I couldn’t be happier to hear about this news. Kit makes it super easy to create awesome pages but Geniuslink is a beast with back-end analytics and I’ve really enjoyed their choice pages for products and content,” said YouTuber Justin Khanna. “I’ve already stocked my Kit page with my favorite tools and necessities across cooking, travel and filming, and knowing Geniuslink has my back with their optimization frees me up to engage with more of the things that matter to me. Can’t wait to see what’s next!”

Before it was acquired by Patreon, Kit raised $2.5 million in capital from outfits like Social Capital, Precursor Ventures, Expa and Ellen Pao.

While Kit made money for influencers, it didn’t really do anything for Patreon to improve paid memberships, and that’s what Patreon is really focusing on right now.