TikTok plans to hand up to $300 million to European creators, as Facebook reportedly tries to lure away high-profile users with cash

• TikTok has announced a $300 million creative fund in Europe. It mirrors a larger fund announced for the US on July 23.
• The company has not yet said who can apply for the fund, which is designed to help creators make money from the platform.
• Currently, creators can only make money on TikTok from brand deals or donations.
• The news comes after a report in the Wall Street Journal said Instagram Reels, an upcoming Facebook-backed competitor, was offering TikTok's biggest names hundreds of thousands of dollars to defect.

TikTok says it will hand up to $300 million to European creators over the next three years, giving them the chance of earning a living on the short-video platform.

The new European creator fund will kick off at $70 million in its first year, TikTok said Thursday, and rise to an estimated $300 million within three years.

The fund is the European version of a scheme TikTok announced for the US on July 23. The US fund is $200 million for its first year.

Creators looking to apply for the US fund must be 18 years old or older, meet a certain baseline for followers, and meet TikTok's requirements around posting original content. TikTok hasn't detailed eligibility criteria for Europe, but says it'll provide more detail in the coming weeks.

TikTok creators can currently only make money on the platform through brand deals or donations. Alongside the fund, TikTok said that brands could broker deals with up to 12,500 creators to mention products through the company's Creator Marketplace.

UK-based Anna Bogomolova, who has 2.3 million followers on the app, suggested the fund could help creators buy equipment, such as a new phone, to help them make better videos. Money was a "big restriction" for many on the app, she said.

"I think it's a good idea, and I think obviously it all depends on how the selection process works, but it will give more of a chance for creators to create more exciting and varied content than they're doing now," she told Business Insider.

Timothy Armoo of Fanbytes, a social media company that runs the ByteHouse, the UK's first collective of TikTok creators, said the fund could help users who were already popular grow faster.

"I'm excited to see things like that happening ... From our perspective, when we launched the ByteHouse, it's almost turned into its own TV show. If you can use a fund to elevate that to the next level, it would be excellent," he said.

He also called for clarity on who could get the money in Europe. "We need to know who would be eligible," he said. "I think it would be people who are truly creators, to some degree – not people who are celebrities. I don't think the Jason Derulos of the world are going to benefit from this."

The cash could prevent TikTok's creator base being tempted away from the platform by other social media networks. Instagram Reels, the Facebook-backed competitor to TikTok launching worldwide imminently, is offering TikTok's biggest names hundreds of thousands of dollars to defect, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"I find it interesting that funding has come just as Facebook has offered hundreds of thousands to TikTok creators to post on Reel first or exclusively," said Vicky Banham, a TikTok creator with 1.3 million followers. "But either way it's a great step in a positive direction to keep TikTok thriving and succeeding."