| If you're finding value in our Creator Economy newsletter, I encourage you to consider subscribing to The Information. It contains exclusive reporting on the most important stories in tech. Save up to $250 on your first year of access. Hello! It's Alex. Whop, a four-year-old startup that helps influencers and other entrepreneurs sell digital goods and services, such as video tips to make options trades or the lines of code to create a shopping bot, has been growing at a fast clip. It now has ambitions to expand and offer extended storefronts and online communities for large retailers, according to its founders. Whop tripled its annual run rate in less than a year, to $90 million earlier this year from a pace of $25 million last spring, from taking a cut of transactions made on the storefronts, known as whops. These customized URLs invite fans of influencers on X, Instagram, YouTube and other social sites to buy services and join chat groups on the site or in Discord channels. (Annual run rate refers to the last month's revenue multiplied by 12.) Creators also use the storefronts to pay fans to repost content or complete tasks in exchange for money, such as sharing a new music clip on the fans' social channels. Its business model is slightly different from Shopify, the juggernaut in e-commerce services for entrepreneurs, which both makes money from a cut of payments and subscriptions. Whop's growth has attracted new investors. The New York-based startup raised more than $50 million last July at a $800 million valuation in a Series B round led by Bain Capital Ventures, according to three investors in the company. The financing brought its total funding to $68 million, according to PitchBook. Whop co-founders Steven Schwartz and Cameron Zoub, both now 26, met a decade ago as teenagers reselling shoes on Facebook. They were inspired by their e-commerce experience to found a marketplace that would make it easier for people to sell digital products. Co-founder Jack Sharkey, 25, came onto the project soon after. Whop "started to become all the other things that you can actually do to earn a sustainable income online," Schwartz said. The customers that drove the most growth over the last year include financial influencers who sell tips and guides on re-selling, sports betting, cryptocurrency trading and options trading, according to Bain Capital Ventures partner Merritt Hummer. These four comprise around half of the company's total sales made using its services, she said. For instance Cameron Fous, a Bali-based day trader whose 447,000-subscriber YouTube channel advertises the millions of dollars he's made trading crypto, has set up a storefront on Whop called Wolf Pack Pro Copy Trading. For $197 a month, Fous sells guides on digital asset trading and offers users access to a community chat, forex trading reports and watch lists . Tyler Mikorski, an influencer and entrepreneur who buys and sells luxury watches, links his Whop page to his social accounts. On the page, called Vookum Verified, fans can pay $20 a month for sale leads and advice on flipping luxury watches. Whop takes about 3% of transactions made over the storefronts, though that take rate can vary on the type of transaction, the founders said. Some 70% of the company's payments volume is U.S.-based. They've seen recent growth in Asia, a region they're eager to expand to. With a potential Tik-Tok ban looming overhead, courting users of other social media like Discord, Instagram, X and YouTube have sustained the past year's growth, says Bain's Hummer. The company has been in conversations with Fortune 500 companies interested in having digital storefronts with Whop, the founders said. It plans to expand in verticals like online fitness, student-oriented content and travel blogs, according to Hummer. Here's what else is going on… See The Information's Creator Economy Database for an exclusive list of private companies and their investors. YouTube is changing how it counts Shorts views to include the number of times a short video starts to play or replay. Ai|coustics, a Berlin-based AI audio enhancement startup, raised €5 million ($5.4 million) in seed funding led by Partech. Rival, a London-based 3D content startup that uses AI, raised $4.2 million in funding led by Speedinvest. Hook, an app that allows users to remix songs, closed a $3 million round. Khosla Ventures, Kygo's Palm Tree Crew and The Raine Group are new investors in the app, which has raised $6 million so far. • TikTok has launched an advertising campaign that features users sharing good experiences with the app , The New York Times reported. The company's advertising has spanned print editions of The New York Times and The Washington Post and national commercials.. • Pew Research found 34% of surveyed Americans supported a TikTok ban, roughly the same as last summer, but down from 50% in March 2023. A top reason respondents gave for supporting a TikTok ban include data security and China's ownership of Tiktok's parent company. • Papa New Guinea banned access to Facebook Monday, citing concerns surrounding hate speech and misinformation. The country has an estimated 1.3 Facebook million users. • Shannon Martin-Resnick, former vice president of talent at Brat TV, is now vice president of talent at creator talent management firm Proud Management. • Emma Gladstone was promoted to head of east coast business at Wheelhouse Entertainment. She started at the media company, Thank you for reading the Creator Economy Newsletter! I'd love your feedback, ideas and tips: kaya@theinformation.com. 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