Startups helping to keep clicks, collabs and cash flowing

% of online creators who make more than $50k per year

creator earnings per 1,000 views on YouTube

% of youngsters who want to join the creator economy

What could be better than making a living from doing what you love? More and more creators have flocked to YouTube, Instagram and TikTok to find out — but for most of them, things haven’t quite panned out as they might have hoped. Incumbent platforms encourage ever more content production in a zero-sum competition between creators that lets only a select few rise to the top. For the rest, passion has turned into grind, and the once-attainable dream of fame into a reality of precarious or unpaid labour.

A new wave of startups is convinced there’s another way though, whether by building platforms that offer creators a bigger slice of the revenue pie and more engagement, or providing the tools that free up more time for creators to focus on what they’re actually good at. The jury’s still out on whether their efforts will be enough to rebalance the sector towards the needs of the long tail of creators who, once hankering for fame and fortune, are now merely getting by.

Creator economy

Backed by the likes of FoodLabs, GE Ventures and Village Global, The Plate is a platform for culinary creators focused on live formats to let them engage more deeply with their followers. Its cofounders are two former management consultants.

The Plate

Provides a content library for creatives that uses AI to let users categorise material according to styles, shots and even human emotions. Its investors include Creandum and EQT Ventures.

Kive

Founded by serial entrepreneur Paul Veugen, Detail provides one app for users to record, stream and edit their videos using their cameras. It has secured backing from the likes of Point Nine and angels including Sten Tamkivi and Taavet Hinrikus.

Detail

Sifted

Dealroom.co

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Influo

Beatly

Guild

Artivive

Hypest Hive

Contact

Vimma

Make Influence

Pixchange

Condense 

MONET

Mana

Flowrite

Earnr

StreamBee

Off Script

Passionfroot

OnJam

FAVE

FUEL

→ While creators start out with the goal of producing content, many of them become bogged down with admin, chasing invoices and other repetitive tasks.
→ Startups are now popping up to solve these headaches, from providing creators with working capital while they wait for invoices to come in to developing the tools they need to manage their communities or edit their content more quickly.

→ Creators’ main goal is to find new fans, not only engage more deeply with existing ones. But to be discovered, they need to rely either on word of mouth or cater to platforms’ preference towards viral content.

→ Funnelling a critical mass of users to their platforms is no easy task for startups, which are up against the recommendation algorithms of social media giants.

→ Some challengers to the big social media platforms let creatives profit from fewer but more engaged fans.

→ Then there are creators who are experimenting with new income streams like merchandise or meet-and-greets — and those dabbling with Web3 technologies like tokens or NFTs, both to earn more money and animate their community.

→ Creators are increasingly spreading their reach across platforms and face a high cost if they’re late to a new platform that’s mid-blowing up.

→ In this context, among the startups providing the plumbing between platforms and creators, those which are platform agnostic may have the highest chance of success.