CreatorDAO, a decentralized community that invests in creators by providing capital, technology, and operational support, has raised $20M in a seed funding round led by a16z crypto and Initialized Capital.
Participating investors include Liquid 2 Ventures, M13, Audacious Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, Abstract Ventures, SV Angel, Hack VC, Fika Ventures, Fuel Capital, Goldhouse, Soma Capital, Alliance DAO, Shima Capital, Olive Capital, Kygo’s Palm Tree Crew, MGU Capital, Position Ventures, Alchemy Ventures, and more than a dozen world leading angels and creators, including Paris Hilton, The Chainsmokers, Michael Ovtiz, and Liam Payne.
CreatorDAO invests in creators in exchange for a percentage of their future earnings. The DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) structure allows investment decisions to be crowdsourced, and contributions to the DAO such as mentorship and collaboration to be rewarded.
Top creators such as Paris Hilton, The Chainsmokers, Shawn Johnson, Andrew East, Joma Tech, and Swaggy Wolfdog, representing 50MM+ audience members, have already signed on to share their time, expertise, and/or earnings with the CreatorDAO community.
“Over $300B of venture capital dollars was invested in technology startups in 2021, less than $100M of investment dollars was invested in creators. Creators today are businesses, but no one’s figured out how to help them realize their growth potential,” said Michael Ma, CEO and co-founder at CreatorDAO.
“It’s an investment vacuum similar to the one that Y Combinator and angel investors filled for tech entrepreneurs 17 years ago.”
Emerging creators can apply to CreatorDAO, where those selected will be provided with the capital, mentorship, and technology needed to make better content and grow their audience.
Creators that join the CreatorDAO will then share a percentage of their future earnings with the community treasury.
“CreatorDAO is leveraging the power of the creative community in a unique way, inspiring creators to invest in each other and leveraging the power of their craft,” said Garry Tan, founder and managing partner at Initialized Capital.
“Having the ability to share in their peers’ success incentivizes creators to collaborate and support each other, creating network effects and contributing to the overall community’s body of work.
Today, the Creator economy is one of the fastest growing industries with an estimated 50M individuals identifying as creators in 2022.
CreatorDAO is currently accepting applications from YouTubers for early DAO membership.
“I love to use my platform with 11:11 Media to lift up other artists, and this is a way to do it on a much bigger scale,” said Paris Hilton, an early investor and a member of the DAO.
