Kippt
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Kippt was a content-sharing and bookmarking platform founded in 2012 by Jori Lallo and Karri Saarinen as part of Y Combinator's 2012 class. It was known for a powerful API and had a business-oriented variant called Inc. It aimed to solve personal knowledge management online - saving and sharing content collections.
02 / Kippt FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Kippt never achieved the growth and scale needed for a sustainable future despite being loved by many, as the founders themselves wrote; building personal knowledge online remained an unsolved problem, limiting its viability as a standalone service.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Kippt was founded by Jori Lallo and Karri Saarinen as part of Y Combinator's 2012 class.
- Acquired by Coinbase
In May 2014 Coinbase acquired the company behind Kippt and Inc in its first major acquisition; the founders joined Coinbase to work on API-related projects, while Kippt and Inc were discontinued.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
In May 2014 Coinbase acquired the team behind content-sharing platforms Kippt and Inc; the founders received cash and Coinbase stock.
- 02
Kippt and its business variant Inc were discontinued in favor of Coinbase-oriented projects.
- 03
The acquisition terms were not disclosed. No audited loss figure was disclosed.