13 creator-economy startups to watch in 2024, according to top VCs
- The creator economy is dominated by Big Tech, but a new set of startups is finding ways to break in.
- Business Insider asked venture capitalists which creator startups they felt showed promise.
It sometimes feels like Big Tech has gobbled up the creator economy, leaving little room for newcomers.
Platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok facilitate billions of dollars flowing annually to influencers at a scale no startup is close to matching. Meta and Google have the vast resources to launch and test features quickly.
And yet, a new crop of startups is fighting to develop products that break through the noise and help creators build their businesses. These companies are ambitious and optimistic, even though some startups in the industry have failed to live up to lofty valuations. They see an opportunity to disrupt a part of the industry so long as they work hard and build the right products for their customers (and perhaps get lucky).
"Doing consumer social at any point in history, you have to be a special kind of crazy," said Alejandro Oropeza, CEO of Flavrs, a TikTok-like app built for food creators. "You're trying to capture lightning in a bottle. You're competing with the biggest incumbents."
Goldman Sachs estimated the creator economy could hit $480 billion annually by 2027, driven largely by influencer marketing and advertising revenue.
Venture capitalists and angel investors are scouring the creator-economy-startup pool to find companies that show promise. Influencer-marketing startups are of interest, as they've proven to be a target for M&A activity this year. Creator startups that build with artificial-intelligence tech, such as Delphi and Merse, have also become a focus among investors.
Business Insider asked investors with expertise in the creator space which startups they felt showed promise. We asked them to provide a name of a company they had bet money on, as well as one they had no financial interest in. We omitted a few nominations of companies BI previously featured in earlier versions of this list, such as Beehiiv and Whop.
Here are those 13 creator startups to watch in 2024, listed in alphabetical order:
Agentio is an advertising platform for brands and creators to track campaigns.
Recommended by: Susannah Shipton, partner at AlleyCorp; Kamran Ali, investor at Inspired Capital
Relationship: AlleyCorp is an investor in Agentio. Inspired Capital is not.
Total funding: $4.25 million, according to the company
What it does: Agentio is an ad platform for creator-led content. Agentio uses AI to help advertisers find creators to partner with by analyzing the creator's data, like performance and previous partnerships.
Based in New York City, Agentio was cofounded by Arthur Leopold (CEO) and Jonathan Meyers (CTO). Leopold was formerly the president of Cameo — and its first employee.
Why it's on the list: Inspired Capital's Kamran Ali told BI that Agentio's tools for YouTube creators remove "significant friction from a process that historically taken weeks" and highlighted its founders' backgrounds at Cameo and Spotify.
Captions lets creators make AI-generated and edited video content.
Recommended by: A* Capital
Relationship: A* Capital is not an investor in Captions.
Total funding: $100 million, according to the company
What it does: Captions is a creator platform that uses AI to help creators edit, produce, and create their videos. It also allows creators to translate videos into several languages.
The platform recently launched Social Studio, a product that can plan a creator's content calendar, generate videos featuring the creator or an AI creator, and post across their accounts.
Captions raised its Series C in July.
Why it's on the list: A* Capital told BI that it's watching the AI video editing startup because of its strong adoption among creators.
Delphi helps creators use digital 'clones' to scale fan engagement.
Recommended by: Hugo Amsellem, a general partner at Intuition VC
Relationship: Intuition VC is not an investor in Delphi.
Total funding: $4.8 million, according to the company
What it does: Delphi is an AI platform that uses public and open-source AI tech to train on a creator's videos, podcasts, and other source material in order to imitate how they think and speak. The goal is to allow a YouTuber, an author, an academic, or a coach to create a virtual clone of themselves that they have fans engage with in a text or audio chat.
Why it's on the list: It's really hard for influencers with large audiences to engage with all of their fans. Delphi opens up a new way for digital stars to connect with followers by "cloning" a version of themselves and potentially make money from those interactions.
Delphi could dominate the emerging clone market, much like personal site creators did for web presence, Intuition VC's Amsellem said. Unlike website builders, Delphi has the potential to be a winner-take-most player through its consumer-facing clone marketplace, he added.
DreamFlare built a platform for AI storytelling.
Recommended by: Helen Liang, founder and managing partner at FoundersX Ventures
Relationship: FoundersX Ventures is an investor in DreamFlare.
Total funding: $1.65 million at the time of launch in July, according to the company
What it does: Cofounded by former Googler Josh Liss and entertainment producer Rob Bralver, DreamFlare is a platform for storytellers to distribute AI-generated content like digital comics and interactive shows.
Why it's on the list: FoundersX Ventures' Liang said DreamFlare AI has the potential to produce "next-gen Pixar studios with an immersive gaming experience," adding that it had courted hundreds of creators globally since launch.
Flavrs is obsessively building tech for food creators.
Recommended by: Prerna Sharma, a partner at Antler US
Relationship: Antler is not an investor in Flavrs.
Total funding: $7 million, according to the company
What it does: Flavrs is a TikTok-style video app for food creators that offers custom features like recipe sharing, diet-specific content feeds, and the option to order ingredients via an integration with Instacart. The company also has an AI-powered tool that lets users find specific recipes based on food they already have in their homes. The company grants equity to its top creator partners and is exploring other creator monetization opportunities as it builds out its user base.
"People's passion for food is very real," Flavrs CEO Alejandro Oropeza told BI. "We've built a platform that's basically for people who live to eat, for people who love food more than anything else."
Why it's on the list: Building a consumer app in a social-media environment dominated by a few big companies can be challenging, as Oropeza freely says. But apps tailored to specific communities have been on the rise in recent months.
Antler US's Sharma said that Flavrs offers a unique opportunity for food creators to monetize their videos and helps users take on recipes by making it easier to shop for ingredients.
Ingenius wants to help influencer marketers stay organized.
Recommended by: Prerna Sharma, a partner at Antler US
Relationship: Antler is an investor in Ingenius.
Total funding: $1 million, according to the company
What it does: Ingenius is an influencer-campaign-management platform for brands, creators, and agencies that helps marketers identify prospective talent, start campaigns, and track results. The company said it focuses on creators who have the right audience for a particular brand, rather than a certain size audience, when matching prospective talent for a campaign.
"We work with brands today who are launching these very cumbersome creator campaigns and we help them to scale them," Ingenius CEO LaTecia Johnson told BI. "We work not just with content creators, but also athletes, musicians, artists, and our technology is based around the understanding of the target creator's audience."
Why it's on the list: Influencer marketing has been a bright spot in the creator economy, as a group of advertising companies have acquired startups in the category in recent months. Sharma nominated Ingenius due to its ability to identify the right talent for a brand, as well as manage the relatively scattered workflow that comes with working with lots of influencers.
Kajabi is an online course platform that recently expanded into newsletters.
Recommended by: Marlon Nichols, cofounder and managing general partner at MaC Venture Capital
Relationship: MaC Venture Capital is not an investor in Kajabi.
Total funding: $550 million, according to the company
What it does: Kajabi helps creators build, market, and sell digital products like online courses, coaching sessions, and newsletters.
In 2022, the company acquired community platform Vibely, and has since expanded its product to offer creators more ways to connect with their audiences, such as group chats.
According to the company, creators using Kajabi have collectively earned over $8 billion from the platform. It hosts tens of thousands of creators, the company said.
Kajabi was founded in 2010 by Kenny Rueter and Travis Rosser. Ahad Khan took over as CEO of the company in 2021.
Why it's on the list: "Kajabi is innovating its product so creators can build their businesses online and market digital content directly to their audiences," Nichols told BI. He added that the company is "well-positioned for further growth."
Lost In is a travel-media startup founded by ex-Jukin Media execs.
Recommended by: Marlon Nichols, cofounder and managing general partner at MaC Venture Capital
Relationship: MaC Venture Capital is an investor in Lost In.
Total funding: $4 million, according to the company
What it does: Lost In (stylized as LOST iN) is a travel-media company built for the creator age. The company publishes city guidebooks and digital content like short-form videos around travel, working with travel-focused creators to produce content. The company has also been acquisitive, buying platforms like BuzzFeed's travel vertical "Bring Me!" and Instagram accounts like Travelgram and Landscapes.
Why it's on the list: MaC Venture Capital's Nichols told BI the startup's founders have a "proven track record in growing digital communities, creating engaging content, and building sustainable businesses in media and technology."
Merse makes digital comics more interactive using AI.
Recommended by: Helen Liang, founder and managing partner at FoundersX Ventures
Relationship: FoundersX Ventures is not an investor in Merse.
Total funding: Approximately $1 million, according to the company
What it does: Merse is a digital-comics platform that incorporates audio effects into stories. The Y-Combinator-backed startup uses AI tools to handle text and voice translations in multiple languages. Artists can also add audio effects and soundtracks, per a Y Combinator blog post from cofounder Kumar Abhirup.
Why it's on the list: Digital comics and web storytelling have become areas of focus among entertainment startups as they tap into new technologies like AI to make content more interactive. Merse is just a few months old, but FoundersX Ventures's Liang told BI she could see the platform growing in popularity among Gen Z and younger users in the coming years.
RedCircle is tackling adtech for podcasters.
Recommended by: Josh Constine, a venture partner at SignalFire
Relationship: SignalFire is an investor in RedCircle.
Total funding: $9.5 million, according to the company
What it does: RedCircle is an adtech platform that helps podcasters insert either programmatic or host-read ads into their episodes. The company also offers a cross-promotion feature that lets different podcasters promote each other's shows.
Why it's on the list: Advertisers are projected to spend $2.28 billion on podcasts this year, a 15.9% increase from 2023, according to eMarketer. But figuring out how to source and insert ads into shows remains a challenge for many creators in the industry.
Constine said RedCircle's tech is helping to make the "whole backend and business turnkey" for podcasters so they can turn their attention to other tasks, such as editing clips to promote episodes on short-form video apps.
ShopMy is a social-commerce platform that uses affiliate and influencer marketing.
Recommended by: Kamran Ali, investor at Inspired Capital
Relationship: Inspired Capital is an investor in ShopMy.
Total funding: $26.5 million, according to the company
What it does: ShopMy is a social-commerce platform that connects brands with creators for paid partnerships and affiliate marketing.
With ShopMy, creators and brands can track the success of a partnership through several data points provided by the platform.
The company was founded in 2020, and now works with over 70,000 creators. The startup has about 60 employees in the US.
Why it's on the list: Inspired Capital's Ali said ShopMy's growth has soared in the past year. "While ShopMy's growth has been stellar, what gets us most excited is the customer love that ShopMy inspires with their users," Ali told BI. "Every brand and creator we speak with is effusive in their praise for the platform."
SymphonyOS helps artists and music creators automate their marketing.
Recommended by: Marshall Sandman, managing partner at Animal Capital
Relationship: Animal Capital is not an investor in SymphonyOS.
Total funding: $2 million, according to the company
What it does: SymphonyOS is a marketing platform for creators and music artists.
The platform helps artists automate their marketing by streamlining links to music and videos with site-building tools, creating AI-powered social ads, and providing tools for tracking and targeting audiences.
SymphonyOS has over 75,000 users signed up on the platform. The company recently launched free tour pages for event promoters and artists who use the platform.
Why it's on the list: Animal Capital's Marshall Sandman has been impressed by SymphonyOS's work with top musicians like Sza and Travis Scott, as well as its partnerships with companies like Gap and Marvel.
Trips wants to be a system of record for creator copyright.
Recommended by: Marshall Sandman, managing partner at Animal Capital
Relationship: Animal Capital is an investor in Trips.
Total funding: $3.5 million, according to the company
What it does: Trips is building a blockchain-based system that helps creators verify ownership of their content via a registry. The company wants to be a place of record for creator IP, allowing influencers to bring copyright claims against anyone who attempts to use their work without permission.
"The notion of copyright infringements is a part of it, but there's a bigger picture here about how you can kind of build a system that allows for creators to actually come, establish ownership, understand conveyance and tracking of rights where rightful revenues can actually flow back to them across the ecosystem," Trips CEO Michael Finkelstein told BI. "That's a bigger, long-term vision of where we're headed."
Why it's on the list: Sandman at Animal Capital told BI that his firm invested in Trips because it saw the potential of the platform to "reshape how content ownership and royalties are handled in the creator economy."
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