When many entrepreneurs begin their journey, no one knows who they are or what they are about to accomplish. Often, the people who back a startup and help drive growth stay behind the scenes. We believe great ideas deserve a start — even if they don't have a name yet.  We're an early stage (Seed to Series A) technology investor based in Chicago. We're entrepreneurs and investors who have helped start and operate dozens of startups, and we back our founders in every sense of the word.

Nameless Ventures

DV Chain provides world-class cryptocurrency trading and technology. From easy-to-use, web-based charting and click trading to white glove, specialized algorithmic orders, institutions around the globe depend on DV Chain’s robust, stable tech stack to power and scale their businesses. DV Chain is an affiliate of DV Trading, a Chicago-based proprietary trading firm and also an affiliate of Independent Trading Group, a Canadian broker-dealer. In 2016, the founders of DV Trading launched DV Chain to adapt the technology and trading strategies employed by DV Trading to bring liquidity to cryptocurrency markets. Since then, DV Chain has become one of the world’s global crypto leaders providing reliable, accessible, and technologically advanced cryptocurrency liquidity solutions.

DV Chain

Belvedere Strategic Capital (BSC) invests in people and companies with exceptional ideas surrounding finance and technology.

Belvedere Strategic Capital

Tomsic Holdings is an investment holding company that invests in traditional and non-traditional assets as well as private equity. Tomsic Holdings focuses on fintech, including futures and equity trading technology firms.

Tomsic Holdings

Metropolitan Capital is a Universal Bank offering premier Private Banking & Wealth Advisory, Commercial Banking, and Investment Banking services that cater to high net worth individuals and entrepreneurs, their families, and the businesses they own and operate.   At Metropolitan Capital, the client experience drives our business philosophy. Through a hands-on approach at every touchpoint of the relationship, our financial professionals provide clients with the tools and the insights to achieve both their professional and personal goals. Our unique ability to understand complex circumstances and craft long-term customized solutions has differentiated Metropolitan Capital from other financial institutions in the industry and has enabled us to successfully grow nearly exclusively through client referrals.   Metropolitan Capital comprises a family of financial service companies that include Metropolitan Capital Bancorp, Inc. (a Federal Reserve Board regulated financial holding company), Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust (Member FDIC), Metropolitan Capital Investment Banc (FINRA licensed broker dealer) and Metropolitan Capital Solutions (Federal Reserve governed corporate advisory).

Metropolitan Capital

GigaStar

GigaStar is a developer of an online content creators marketplace. This marketplace allows fans and followers to invest in their favorite creators to support them. In addition, creators can monetize their future capital by offering fans rights to a percentage of their channel's potential future revenue, allowing creators to have streamlined access to fan funding, fan engagement, and long-term royalties. The company was founded in 2022 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

GigaStar offers a blockchain-based financing platform for YouTube creators. Fans can support their favorite creators by purchasing Channel Revenue Tokens (CRTs) through GigaStar's platform during “drops,” which is when creators list their tokens. After the drop closes, creators receive funding raised in the form of the USDC stablecoin, with GigaStar minting the CRTs for fans afterwards. CRTs represent a portion of the creator's YouTube channel revenue and investors have the right to receive a share of the revenue via smart contracts operating on the Polygon Network. The tokens are valued based on the creator's channel valuation undertaken by GigaStar. Further, creators can offer fans certain perks such as access to virtual events and merchandise for buying CRTs. Before creators can raise funding, their YouTube channel must meet certain requirements, including that of generating USD 30,000 in annual revenue over the past 12 months (excluding partnerships) and have a minimum subscriber count of 25,000. Other solutions offered by the company include GigaStarPortfolio, which tracks investment performance for users. In March 2023, the company completed its smart contract security audit through Runtime Verification. The company planned to commercialize its platform in Q2 2023.

Giving creators the power of content monetization and audience engagement.

Creator Economy

GigaStar Unveils DropStars Program, Announces Inaugural YouTube Creator Advisory Board Members

GigaStar offers a blockchain-based financing platform for YouTube creators. Fans can support their favorite creators by purchasing Channel Revenue Tokens (CRTs) through GigaStar's platform during “drops,” which is when creators list their tokens. After the drop closes, creators receive funding raised in the form of the USDC stablecoin, with GigaStar minting the CRTs for fans afterwards. CRTs represent a portion of the creator's YouTube channel revenue and investors have the right to receive a share of the revenue via smart contracts operating on the Polygon Network. The tokens are valued based on the creator's channel valuation undertaken by GigaStar. Further, creators can offer fans certain perks such as access to virtual events and merchandise for buying CRTs. Before creators can raise funding, their YouTube channel must meet certain requirements, including that of generating USD 30,000 in annual revenue over the past 12 months (excluding partnerships) and have a minimum subscriber count of 25,000. Other solutions offered by the company include GigaStarPortfolio, which tracks investment performance for users. In March 2023, the company completed its smart contract security audit through Runtime Verification. The company planned to commercialize its platform in Q2 2023.GigaStar also planned to launch its secondary market titled “GigaStar Exchange” for CRT trading by 2024. When a fan sells a CRT in the secondary market, the creator of the corresponding YouTube channel would receive a 2.5% royalty fee of a 5% transaction fee levied on the token trading price, for each subsequent trade of the CRT.Funding and financialsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17138">March 2023 </a>, GigaStar raised USD 4.8 million in a seed funding round.

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’s request. Creators are offered three packages: Lite, Pro, and Premium. Lite offeirs 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.&nbsp;In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/36100">November 2024,</a> Patreon introduced new features allowing creators and fans to gift memberships and offer subscription discounts.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’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..Key Customers and partnershipsThe company has partnered with third-party services, including Vimeo (to host videos) and Discord (for community chats).&nbsp;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.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Patreon

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 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.
 
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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

GigaStar

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