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Patreon sells off Kit, a merch-distribution startup

A smaller company, Geniuslink, is taking over Kit.

Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter
Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.
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Patreon, which gives fans a way to pay their favorite creators on a recurring basis, is selling the merchandise-distribution startup Kit that it acquired last year. Geniuslink, a tech company that offers link shortening for marketing products, is the buyer. 

Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed. 

"When the Kit team was acquired by Patreon last year, we shared our desire to ensure Kit continued to thrive, as we've been so impressed with the product the team had built," Geniuslink said in a blog post announcing the takeover. "We feel enormous gratitude for all the work the original Kit team, as well as the Patreon team, have put in to allow for what will hopefully continue to be a very smooth transition."

Originally, when Patreon acquired Kit, the company said its goal was integrating the company to invent a way to automate "merch for membership," so creators on its network won't have to deal with as much stuffing and mailing of their own packages.