Founder Ed Craven recently denied claims that Kick has been losing money, describing how the streaming platform actually turned a profit during its first three months of existence. Kick has rapidly grown to become one of the most talked about services in the streaming industry, attracting top talent from rival Twitch by offering an extremely favorable 95/5 percent revenue split.
Rumors have been making the rounds for several months now to the effect that Kick has been on the verge of collapse. Craven was quick to refute these claims during an interview with content creator Big E, saying that “I’ll be honest with you right now, Kick has only been around for three to four months, right? We saw profit in Q1.” The executive added that “we saw profit in Q1 just through one strategic partnership.” The strategic partnership in question, on the other hand, remains unclear.
Craven emphasized that while running a streaming service isn’t without risk, the business model can in fact be lucrative, insofar as the company has a long-term roadmap. “It’s not a difficult business model to sustain if you’re doing it correctly,” Craven explained. “I think as long as people understand there is a long-term roadmap out there that we’re very comfortable with and doubling down on, I really look forward to seeing what’s achievable.”
The executive said that such skepticism is natural, adding that collecting subscription money isn’t actually what supports the streaming service, despite this being a common misconception. “I think naturally, people are skeptical for the right reasons, and we’ll just continue to prove them wrong. Taking people’s subscription money isn’t what makes live streaming sustainable. That is the biggest misconception.”
Kick has been seeing substantial growth over the past couple of months, at least according to statistics tracker SimilarWeb. Kick attracted more than 58 million visitors to its website in March, up from 13 million in January and 29 million in February. Twitch by contrast averages about a billion visitors to its website each month.
This comes in the wake of claims that Kick has been inflating its viewership figures. The streamer CodyRiffs shared his experience with streaming on Kick earlier this month, describing the company as a "trainwreck" and explaining how the platform "reeks" of view botting. The content creator described that he was “immediately impressed by the amount of viewers I had right away on my first Kick stream,” adding that “I was less impressed later on when I found out the viewer count on Kick doesn’t mean shit.” Craven has of course denied all of these accusations.