Patreon Acquired Kit

Patreon powers membership businesses for creators of all kinds. Kit is a community to discover, discuss, and get interesting products – grouped into kits – for activities like traveling, Djing, cooking, cycling and more. Patron has announced that they have acquired Kit.

It appears that the acquisition could result in something on Patreon that would make it easier for creators to sell physical merchandise. Exact details have yet to be revealed.

One of the most effective ways creators build a growing and sustainable membership is by selling merch. Patrons want something personalized, a physical artifact to connect them to the creator – and the more unique the better. But today, merch is unnecessarily painful for creators; we’ve talked to heaps of creators who spend time stuffing envelopes, researching the lowest prices on shipping, and take endless trips to the post office. We want to make merch easy. A simple solution empowering creators to easily add merch to their membership business, and connect deeply with their biggest fans.

Kit launched a little over two years ago with a simple idea: to help people discover the products worth getting – and create a new kind of experience where your creativity and expertise actually earn you money. Patreon says that the creators of Kit have “built a beautiful product in Kit.com”.

Kit posted a blog about the acquisition, in which they state they are going to work on Merchandise, creating features that give creators a simple way to deliver their products to their members. Kit says it will continue to be available to Kit users while they transition over to Patreon.

What does this mean for podcasters who use Patreon? That’s not entirely clear, yet. The Patreon blog about the acquisition ends with: “Together with Kit, we’re going to make it simple by inventing a way to fulfill automated “merch for membership” that will help creators stop stuffing envelopes and get back to full time creation.”