Kik Interactive, Inc.
Kik lets you connect with friends, groups, and the world around you through chat. Kik was founded in 2009, when a small group of University of Waterloo students decided to build a company that would shift the center of computing from the PC to the phone. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company now has more than 100 employees working on Kik, a chat app that lets users connect with people, services, and businesses. Kik is backed by major venture capitalists and has raised $120.5M to date. Its VCs are the same firms that first helped Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga and others become household names. China's Tencent, maker of WeChat, is a strategic investor.