The purpose of this page is for NON-Kik affiliated persons to provide their views. We also want to make it clear that they are speaking for themselves, and do not represent the views of Kik or the Kin Foundation.

Within the next month and a half, Kik will be announcing a slate of digital service providers participating in the pre-production stage of the Kin Ecosystem. These three to five partners will drive the Kin Ecosystem forward by accepting Kin as a form of payment and offering opportunities to earn Kin within their digital services before the launch of the Kin Rewards Engine in the third quarter of the year. The results of these first few custom integrations will be used to prepare detailed case studies for use in marketing the Kin Ecosystem to future digital services.

The intent of this post is to explore who these soon-to-be-announced apps and services might turn out to be. These projections are entirely speculative, based on market analysis and existing business relationships. I’m ending my disclaimers there.

But before I get to my list, I’d like to profile one man who I think might be pulling the strings behind many of these potential partnerships.

Who is Fred Wilson?

Fred Wilson is a New York City venture capitalist and active blogger well-known for his phenomenal track record over the past decade. The firm he co-founded, Union Square Ventures, made major early funding round investments in some of the most successful tech companies of the last decade, including Twitter, Tumblr, Zynga, Indeed, Etsy, Meetup, Stripe, and Kickstarter. Starting in 2011, USV invested in Kik’s Series A, B, and C funding rounds, earning Fred a spot on the Kik Board of Directors. Recently, Fred has found a huge interest in cryptocurrency investing, leading the seed round for the blockchain hedge fund Polychain Capital, which recently participated in the Kin TDE pre-sale.

In watching interviews with both Fred and Kik’s CEO, Ted Livingston, it is clear to me that Fred’s advice played a formative role in the creation of the Kin project vision, and I have no doubt that as a member of the Kik Board, Fred’s business connections in the digital service sector will play a role in Kin’s selection of early partners.