Antler is an early-stage venture capital firm that seeks to invest in technology companies. The firm incubates startups from a variety of sectors and offers a global community network of co-founders and access to talent, expert advisors, expansion support, and capital around the world.

Antler

Alliance Consumer Growth (“ACG”) is a private equity firm which provides growth capital and value-added partnership to the most promising young consumer, retail and restaurant brands.

Alliance Consumer Growth

Manzanita Capital invest in products they love and which they are proud to introduce to new markets. They expect their entrepreneurs to be their partners. They are highly selective when making acquisitions because they lavish individual attention and support on their companies. They use their experience in international retail and branding and their financial expertise and resources to guide their management teams into new products or markets. They aspire to be long term shareholders and believe that active participation at board level builds value.

Manzanita Capital

Puig is a third-generation family-owned fashion and fragrance business based in Barcelona. Puig creates distinctive brands and fragrance experiences that make people dream. The company’s ambition is to define the future of the fragrance category and capture a disproportionate share of innovation and growth. The company’s strong performance has resulted in substantial growth and revenues of €1,935 million in 2017. Puig success stories include a combination of owned brands such as Carolina Herrera, Nina Ricci, Paco Rabanne, Jean Paul Gaultier, Penhaligon’s and L’Artisan Parfumeur; licenses such as Prada, Valentino, Christian Louboutin and Comme des Garçons; and Lifestyle fragrances. Puig products are sold in more than 150 countries.

Puig

Upper90 provides tailored growth capital to top disruptors in eCommerce, FinTech, and Supply Chain Finance. Founded in 2018 by executives from Seamless-GrubHub and Goldman Sachs, the firm has grown AUM to $1.2B and has originated over $1B of additional co-investment capacity to LPs through SPVs and direct opportunities. Industry leaders like Thrasio, Clearco, Crusoe Energy, Clutch, Settle, and Octane have each secured an initial credit facility from Upper90, helping their founders scale with less dilution.

Upper90

Demira Gate is a investment management company that offers fund and fundings to various companies.

Demira Gate

SuperOrdinary

CREA is the leading digital commerce enabler providing end to end solution for brands to reach the booming, digital savvy millennial and Generation Z consumers in Southeast Asia.

Very Good Light promotes a more inclusive definition of beauty, and the leading genderless beauty and skincare publication for Generation Z and young Millennials.

VIOLETTE FR is a multi-category line that includes skincare, hair, and makeup made with safe and effective vegan and cruelty-free ingredients. Its goal is to celebrate individuality while instilling the French mentality of celebrating imperfection.

SuperOrdinary specializes in traversing marketplaces and accelerating companies on e-commerce platforms. Their ecosystem of capabilities spans the globe, giving companies unprecedented access to new consumers and geographies. The company solves difficulties for companies and creators by fusing data and creativity to guarantee they reach their audience through the channels that matter most.

SuperOrdinary, a brand accelerator program, entered the creator economy space in July 2022 with the acquisition of Fanfix, a subscription-based content monetization platform, that enables creators to build membership communities. The acquisition allowed Fanfix to use SuperOrdinary’s 140 brands to bring in additional monetization options for creators and allowed creators to create their own storefronts on Fanfix. The Fanfix platform also allows fans to access content such as extended cuts of a podcast, meal and fitness plans, blogs, unreleased music, behind-the-scenes footage, motivational audio, giveaways, and direct messages. Creators can set their own pay-per-message and subscription price, with Fanfix taking 20% of creator earnings to cover its operating expenses. Other features include tipping on posts and a dashboard to track monthly income and subscriber count. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/14805">November 2022 </a>, Fanfix launched a free-to-use link-in-bio tool, which allowed creators to display their Fanfix page on other platforms and provided creators with 46% of ad revenue. To apply to be on the platform, creators are required to have more than 10,000 followers across all their social media platforms. As of April 2023, Fanfix paid out a total of USD 11 million to creators, with the company stating that creators are able to earn an average annual income of USD 70,000.

Giving creators the power of content monetization and audience engagement.

Creator Economy

SuperOrdinary: $58 Million Funding And Over $800 Million Valuation

Crea

Very Good Light

Chasing Unicorns

igniteXL Ventures

Fab Co-Creation Studio Ventures

VioletteVIOLETTE_FR, Inc.

Greycroft

Female Founders Fund

Felix Capital

SuperOrdinary, a brand accelerator program, entered the creator economy space in July 2022 with the acquisition of Fanfix, a subscription-based content monetization platform, that enables creators to build membership communities. The acquisition allowed Fanfix to use SuperOrdinary’s 140 brands to bring in additional monetization options for creators and allowed creators to create their own storefronts on Fanfix. The Fanfix platform also allows fans to access content such as extended cuts of a podcast, meal and fitness plans, blogs, unreleased music, behind-the-scenes footage, motivational audio, giveaways, and direct messages. Creators can set their own pay-per-message and subscription price, with Fanfix taking 20% of creator earnings to cover its operating expenses. Other features include tipping on posts and a dashboard to track monthly income and subscriber count. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/14805">November 2022 </a>, Fanfix launched a free-to-use link-in-bio tool, which allowed creators to display their Fanfix page on other platforms and provided creators with 46% of ad revenue. To apply to be on the platform, creators are required to have more than 10,000 followers across all their social media platforms. As of April 2023, Fanfix paid out a total of USD 11 million to creators, with the company stating that creators are able to earn an average annual income of USD 70,000.In January 2024, the firm announced the implementation of its comprehensive <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25489">TikTok Shop solutions for major lifestyle brands in the US. </a>This initiative builds on the social platform's successful operations in China.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2023, Fanfix had over 10 million users on its platform and ~3,000 creators. Notable creators included Tiktok stars Brooke Monk, Madi Monroe and Instagram-focused creator Cameron Dallas.Funding and financialsIn October 2023, the company raised <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22475">USD 58 million in a Series B funding </a>round led by Manzanita, bringing its post-money valuation to over USD 800 million. It planned to use the funds to invest in global live-streaming capabilities, Amazon account management and brand protection services, and its creator monetization platform.

<div>
 
 Patreon provides a platform for creators to offer numerous types of content (videos, text, podcasts, images, etc.) for which fans can subscribe to a monthly membership without any ads or algorithms. Patrons (Patreon subscribers) can pay monthly or per post for content access, in addition to the pay-what-you-want option. Creators are paid monthly or for every new post uploaded. They can offer rewards for different tiers, including meeting patrons or custom work upon the patron&rsquo;s request. Creators are offered three packages: Lite, Pro, and Premium. Lite offers basic creator tools for a membership business with no tiers for fans; Pro offers additional tools and perks (e.g., workshops) with unlimited membership tiers; Premium caters to established companies with a large following, earning a monthly income of USD 5,000 or more, offering Pro services in addition to advanced features and Dedicated Partner Manager services. Creators can start for free and are charged a monthly commission based on their plan when they start earning: 5% (Lite), 8% (Pro), and 12% (Premium), as well as payment processing fees. 
 
 
 The company revealed in November 2021 that it is building a video hosting platform with a native player to eliminate the reliance of third-party video hosting platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo for creators to share video content with their patrons.
 
 
 Memberful, a Patreon-owned membership software platform for independent creators, launched a newsletter feature in October 2021, allowing creators to send news emails to their subscribers. In the future, creators will be able to make posts publicly viewable and schedule and send targeted emails to specific groups of subscribers. Notably, Memberful&rsquo;s paid plans (charged monthly) retain 4.9% of creator revenue, while competitor Substack retains 10%.
 
 
 Patreon acquired tech recruiting firm, Clear Talent, in August 2021 to scale up talent and build its engineering, product, and design team. The company seeks to accelerate the introduction of new features and platform capabilities and double the total monthly revenue its creators earn to around USD 200 million. In October 2023, the firm 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22877">
 acquired Moment,
 </a>
 a digital events platform, to strengthen event management solutions for creators.
 
 
 Key 
 customers
 and partnerships
 
 
 As of August 2022, Patreon had more than 250,000 creators, over 8.5 million active subscribers, and had paid out more than USD 3.5 billion to creators. 
 
 
 In June 2021, Patreon partnered with shesaid.so, an international community of women and gender minorities, to co-present the Alternative Power 100 Music List 2021 (#AltList) with the theme &ldquo;The New Creative Economy.&rdquo; Patreon and shesaid.so aim to make the music industry more inclusive and will co-host a series of virtual and physical events (including panel discussions and creator networking). The company has also partnered with third-party services, including Vimeo (to host videos) and Discord (for community chats).
 
 
 Funding
 
 and
 financials
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s most recent funding round was a Series F round worth USD 155 million in April 2021, led by new investor Tiger Global Management. This round triples Patreon&rsquo;s valuation to USD 4 billion. The funds are to be used to further develop its platform for mobile and desktop, increase content consumption tools, and accelerate its international footprint.
 
 
 The total cumulative payouts to creators via the platform surpassed USD 2 billion as of September 2020, and the company expects annual payouts to pass USD 1 billion in 2021. 
 
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Patreon

<div>
 
 Substack offers a publishing platform that encompasses design, analytics, and payment infrastructure to assist newsletter subscriptions. The platform enables writers to focus on content creation and monetization via subscriptions. Writers can build their own paid newsletter subscription businesses and may choose to start with free newsletters for lead generation. Newsletters can be published to the web in addition to individual email addresses and its mobile app.&nbsp; The platform has a dedicated discovery section ranking the top newsletters, which are then promoted based on &ldquo;internet points&rdquo;. The platform supports podcasting by allowing writers to embed MP3s into their newsletters.
 
 
 The company launched multiple product improvements over the years, including video creation and editing features (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24569">
 November 2023,
 </a>
 the capacity to publish video podcasts, create interactive AI-generated transcripts, and customize shareable video clips
 ), AI-powered audio transcription tools (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21412">
 August 2023,
 </a>
 featuring transcript generation and audiogram creation capabilities), Private Substacks (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15987">
 January 2023,
 </a>
 where readers can request to subscribe to read users posts) Substack Grow (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4243">
 August 2021
 </a>
 , to help writers add paying subscribers in), Substack Local (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3163">
 April 2021
 </a>
 , an initiative to support the local news ecosystem), Substack Pro (to offer advance payments for certain writers), Substack Defender (July 2020, to offer legal support to writers in).&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 Writers have to bring in their own readers, and once they start earning (at a minimum of USD 3 per month), a commission of 10% (plus the Stripe payment processing fee) will be charged on the writer&rsquo;s income. Additionally, Substack stated that it has no plans to include advertisements as an additional revenue stream within the platform. By July 2021, the company reported its top 10 publishers bring in more than USD 20 million per year in combined subscription revenue. Moreover, the company has attracted famous journalists such as Andrew Sullivan, Casey Newton, and Edith Zimmerman. Substack had more than 500,000 paid subscribers as of March 2021.&nbsp;
 
 
 Other notable events include the acquisition of subscription-based social networking app Cocoon in 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5113">
 August 2021
 </a>
 , the acquisition of Australian public correspondence startup Letter in 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4601">
 July 2021
 </a>
 and the funding of podcast network Booksmart Studio&rsquo;s launch in 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4390">
 July 2021
 </a>
 .
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s most recent funding round was Series B funding worth USD 65 million in 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3156">
 March 2021
 </a>
 . The round was led by return investor Andreessen Horowitz, valuing Substack at approximately USD 650 million. The funds are to be utilized to rapidly expand the Substack Pro program alongside the implementation of other features.&nbsp;
 
 
 Substack reported a net loss of USD 22.9 million in 2021, having grown from a net loss of USD 2.3 million in 2020.
 
</div>

Substack

<div>
 
 Cameo offers a platform where creators, such as influencers, celebrities, athletes, artists, and musicians, can provide personalized videos and shout-outs to fans as per their request, charging for each video from USD 5 to as high as USD 2,500. Creators who have a minimum of 20,000 Instagram followers are automatically admitted onto the platform, where they set their own price and can choose to accept a fan request or not within seven days. The creator must fulfill the request within a week, which the fan can download and share. Additionally, Cameo provides a messaging option for less expensive creator/fan interactions. Cameo takes a 25% commission on each transaction on the platform.
 
 
 As of September 2020, Cameo had more than 30,000 creators across multiple industries. Cameo reported that it generated around USD 100 million in video transactions in 2020, with more than 2 million video messages being shared on its platform since launch, of which 80% were gifts for others. Furthermore, the company reported its creators and fans are based in 138 and 178 countries, respectively, with almost 20% of Cameos being purchased from outside of the US as of March 2021. For example, Cameo entered into a commercial partnership (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8576">
 February 2022
 </a>
 ) with Softbank, an existing investor of Cameo, to add more Japanese creators and expand its platform in Japan as a culturally fluent localized version.
 
 
 Cameo acquired marketing and merch company Represent (October 2021) whose clients include Jennifer Lopez, Ed Sheeran, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matthew McConaughey, among others. The acquiring company will onboard the Represent team as well as Represent&rsquo;s existing client relationships. In the near term, Cameo plans to allow fans to purchase &ldquo;gift bundles&rdquo; that pair a Cameo video with related merchandise from the creator. The company hopes to introduce new forms of creator-fan engagement, establish new creator revenue opportunities, and offer non-profit organizations a new way to raise funds.
 
 
 Funding and financials 
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s most recent funding round was Series C funding worth USD 100 million in March 2021, which valued the company at over USD 1 billion, achieving unicorn status. The funds are to be utilized to enhance the Core Cameo experience and capabilities, create new creator-fan engagement products (including Fan Clubs and Cameo Calls), and develop Cameo's B2B business. The company also plans to continue its international expansion.
 
</div>

Cameo

<div>
 
 Buttondown offers a publishing platform for writers to create and distribute newsletters on a subscription basis (price set by the writer) or for free. The platform does not charge writers until they reach 1,000 subscribers, after which they are charged a monthly fee of USD 5 per thousand subscribers. Buttondown also offers advanced features for professionals at a monthly fee of USD 29. Writers can send multiple separate newsletters from the same account, catering to different audiences by maintaining separate mailing lists.
 
 
 The platform also provides writers with user-specific analytics and insights, including features such as side-by-side comparisons of multiple emails. Buttondown has integrated with numerous third-party providers, Ghost and Medium (blogging platforms), Squarespace and Weebly (website building and hosting service providers), and web application integrator, Zapier.  As of December 2020, the company is run entirely by the CEO and founder, Justin Duke, and reported to have a monthly cost base of around USD 1,100. Furthermore, the CEO has made a commitment to donate at least 10% of profits to the software that enables it.
 
</div>

Buttondown

<div>
 
 Disciple Media, headquartered in the UK, offers bespoke community media apps for creators to privately share and own their content while having control, especially regarding monetization. Creators can use the platform to promote their brand, increase reach and engagement with fans, and monetize by charging fans a monthly subscription for access in addition to in-app purchases, sponsorship, and advertising. The company claims that the app-creating process had been reduced to 10 minutes since 2017.
 
 
 The company reported 200% revenue growth and recurring revenue growth of 160% in 2020. As of July 2021, the platform has reached over 500 global communities (up from 200 in May 2020) with 2 million members using the platform. The company claims that the growth of recurring revenue by more than 850% in 2019 was driven by monthly growth of 15% in new communities and 20% in members.
 
 
 Disciple Media raised USD 6 million in a Series A funding round in July 2021, led by previous investors including Nick Mason (Pink Floyd drummer) and Rob Pierre (founder and CEO of Jellyfish), among others. In addition to the company&rsquo;s fundraising, Eirik Svendsen&mdash;an expert in online marketplaces, SaaS, and the publishing and media industry&mdash;has come on as Chairman of the Board.
 
</div>

Disciple Media

Platforms that allow creators to share several types of content. Some platforms also offer fan engagement/ interactions with the creative artist via videos/ live streams.

Platforms that offer exclusive content to signed up members.

Platforms that allow creators to share their written works and blogs.

Platforms that provide tools to discover relevant analytics, produce content, engage with the audience, and help with the overall process.

Platforms that allow creators to share one of either videography, live streams, photos, music or audio podcasts with fan engagement capabilities.

Blockchain-based Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) allow creators to transfer ownership of their content via platforms that share proceeds with buyers, sellers, creators, and platforms via smart contracts.

Web3 enables creator monetization by providing decentralized platforms for creators to engage with their audience

NFT platforms segment uses metaverse concepts

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 
 SuperOrdinary, a global creators' marketplace, has rolled out its extensive TikTok Shop solutions for major U.S. lifestyle brands, extending on their success in China. The service includes TikTok Shop operations management, live streaming and short video content creation strategy, ad spend management, data analysis and reporting, performance optimization, customer service, shipping and logistics. It also offers customized live streaming sets to enhance the shopping experience. Creator outreach and affiliate relationship management are also included in the service.

</div>

SuperOrdinary

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