Cameo
Cameo headquarters in Chicago.
- Two-year-old Cameo, which lets fans buy personalized messages from celebrities, has raised $50 million in Series B funding, for a total of $65.2 million in funding.
- Cameo CEO Steven Galanis wants to use the money to expand the company internationally by hiring marketing, engineering, and talent acquisition staff.
- Cameo's rise comes as other social
media platforms are increasingly vying for influencers' attention. - Click here for more BI Prime stories.
Two-year-old Cameo, which lets people buy personalized video messages from celebrities, has raised $50 million in Series B funding, for a total of $65.2 million in funding, to expand outside the US.
The latest round was led by Kleiner Perkins and included The Chernin Group, Spark Ventures and Bain Capital Ventures and Series A lead investor Lightspeed Venture Partners. Cameo has expanded to just over 100 employees from 17 in January.
Read more: Cameo app sells personalized celebrity messages
Cameo plans to expand globally
Cameo has around 15,000 personalities including Snoop Dogg, NFL running back James White, and Cody Ko, a YouTube influencer with 3 million YouTube subscribers, who set their own price for the messages they sell and keep 75% of the revenue. Cameo has fulfilled 275,000 video requests, according to the company; the most popular talent are former Vine stars with young fan bases who can afford Cameo's average price of around $62, Cameo CEO Steven Galanis said.
Cameo gained attention after celebrities including Ellen Degeneres and Howard Stern name-dropped the service, with Degeneres tweeting in February, "My Executive Producer @AndyLassner is on Cameo! If you're looking for a wonderful Valentine's Day message, or really any message, Andy can record it for you."
Cameo plans to use the money to grow the company internationally, where it claims to already get 30% of its revenue, by hiring marketing and engineering staff and expanding its celebrity base. Chicago-based Cameo has a second headquarters in Los Angeles, and another cofounder, Martin Blencowe, is moving to the UK to lead the expansion.
Galanis is also interested in getting politicians on Cameo ahead of the election and spoke of aspirations of becoming a messaging platform.
"We want to be the ubiquitous platform in the world for this," Galanis told Business Insider. "We didn't create Cameo for Drake or Justin Bieber; what we really wanted to create was a mechanism for the long tail of talent to monetize. Maybe in the future we can leverage the platform to create a messaging platform that anyone can use to connect with their favorite people."
Other social platforms are trying to work with influencers
Cameo's expansion comes as other social platforms are trying to work with influencers to get access to their followings, whether it be YouTube, Facebook, Snap, or Twitch.
Cameo has had challenges with its business model; it disabled sales on its app for Apple devices to avoid paying Apple's 30% cut that it takes from in-app sales. Galanis said he's working on a way to relaunch the Apple app without hurting the business.
Cameo also isn't the only place users can go for a personalized shoutout. Startup Starsona Inc. offers a similar service from celebrities like Perez Hilton.
Ilya Fushman, partner at Cameo investor Kleiner Perkins, acknowledged there are risks for companies at the venture stage, but that Cameo's base of talent made it attractive as an investment.
"What's compelling to me about Cameo is that they've built a pretty incredible base of talent," Fushman said. "The cofounder of Cameo was an early Vine star and really understands the talent side of this."