ViewModelProviders not finding my ViewModel class on API 19

I'm trying to create my ViewModel class in Android 4.4 (API 19) but an error is thrown. I've tried to execute on Android 5.1 and works fine.

Import:

import androidx.lifecycle.ViewModelProviders

Code:

mViewModel = ViewModelProviders.of(this)[SplashScreenViewModel::class.java]

Error:

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com.nddprint.nddprinthplink.viewmodel.SplashScreenViewModel
    at com.nddprint.nddprinthplink.view.splash.SplashScreenFragment.onCreate(SplashScreenFragment.kt:36)
    at androidx.fragment.app.Fragment.performCreate(Fragment.java:2586)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveToState(FragmentManagerImpl.java:838)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.addAddedFragments(FragmentManagerImpl.java:2100)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.executeOpsTogether(FragmentManagerImpl.java:1874)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.removeRedundantOperationsAndExecute(FragmentManagerImpl.java:1830)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.execPendingActions(FragmentManagerImpl.java:1727)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.dispatchStateChange(FragmentManagerImpl.java:2663)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.dispatchActivityCreated(FragmentManagerImpl.java:2613)
    at androidx.fragment.app.Fragment.performActivityCreated(Fragment.java:2624)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveToState(FragmentManagerImpl.java:904)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveFragmentToExpectedState(FragmentManagerImpl.java:1238)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveToState(FragmentManagerImpl.java:1303)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.dispatchStateChange(FragmentManagerImpl.java:2659)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManagerImpl.dispatchActivityCreated(FragmentManagerImpl.java:2613)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentController.dispatchActivityCreated(FragmentController.java:246)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentActivity.onStart(FragmentActivity.java:542)
    at androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity.onStart(AppCompatActivity.java:201)
    at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnStart(Instrumentation.java:1171)
    at android.app.Activity.performStart(Activity.java:5241)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2168)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2245)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.access$800(ActivityThread.java:135)
    at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1196)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:136)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5017)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:779)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:595)
    at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)