Day: August 21, 2025

• The creator economy has captivated notable VCs’ attention and checks.
• Some creator-focused startups are raising millions of dollars.
• Here are the pitch decks that 44 startups used in Series A, seed, and pre-seed rounds.

The creator economy has bred a generation of startups — from influencer-marketing companies to new social-media experiences.

These startups have captured the attention and wallets of influential venture capitalists and angel investors over the last several years, giving rise to several unicorn valuations in the space.

Check out 16 VC firms investing in creator economy startups

Even as the economy has weathered changing tides and investments have cooled across industries, some startups in this sector are still raising money.

In 2024, three trends drove some of the largest deals in the creator economy: AI, social commerce, and newsletters. Several startups raised at least $10 million in new funding last year, such as AI startup Captions or newsletter platform Beehiiv.

Here are 17 creator-economy startups that raised more than $10 million in 2024

AI is continuing to fuel investor interest in the creator economy in 2025, too. For instance, Hedra, a generative AI startup used by some creators to make viral content, announced a $32 million Series A led by A16z in May.

Creators themselves, like Emma Chamberlain and MrBeast, are also raising venture capital for their businesses.

See the leaked pitch deck Chamberlain Coffee used

So, how do creator-economy startups land those investments? Often, it starts with a pitch deck. 

Lumanu, a creator-focused financial startup, uses a simple pitch deck that’s more of a “conversation guider,” its cofounder and CEO, Tony Tran, told Business Insider.

“My pitch is always why, what, how, and why now?” Tran said. (Read the full pitch deck here.)

Skye, a career-coaching startup, had different pitch decks depending on the type of investor or fund they pitched to.

“I had two different versions, depending on the fund,” said Jessica Wolf, Skye’s CEO and one of its cofounders. “If I knew a fund was more into pre-seed, all about the founder, I had one deck. But if I knew that they were a numbers person, I would use another one.”

Every startup has a different approach.

Some, such as Throne, even ditch the pitch deck altogether and opt for an email or Notion document.

Read the email template creator-economy startup Throne used to secure its seed investment.

We talked with founders who’ve pitched their startups to investors about their process. They broke down the pitch decks they used to secure millions of dollars in funding.

Read the pitch decks that helped 44 creator-focused startups fundraise millions of dollars:

Note: Pitch decks are sorted by investment stage and size of round.

Series A

• Restream, a livestreaming alternative to platforms like the Amazon-owned Twitch: $50 million Series A (14 pages)
• Hedra, a generative AI video platform: $32 million Series A (9 pages)
• Dub, a fintech startup that lets people copy influencers’ stock trades: $30 million Series A (15 pages)
• ShopMy, an affiliate platform that lets creators earn commissions through shoppable landing pages: $26.5 million Series A (23 pages)
• Posh, an IRL events startup: $22 million Series A (12 pages)
• Pearpop, a creator-marketing platform: $18 million Series A (18 pages)
• Spoon Radio, a social-audio startup: $17 million Series A (15 pages)
• Kyra, a content studio, talent-management firm, and influencer-marketing platform: $15 million Series A (20 pages)
• Allstar, a startup helping gamers become social-media creators: $12 million Series A (6 pages)
• Lumanu, a business-solutions platform for creators: $12 million Series A (8 pages)
• Hype, a platform for link-in-bio and other creator-monetization tools: $10 million Series A (13 pages)
• Catch+Release, a startup that helps creators and everyday social-media users license their content to brands: $8.8 million Series A (12 pages)
• Slip.stream, a music startup focused on gamers: $7.5 million Series A (13 pages)
• Brag House, an esports startup: $5 million Series A (24 pages)

Seed

• Linguana, an AI video translation startup that is targeting YouTubers: $8.5 million (13 pages)
• AvatarOS, a startup building virtual avatars for social media, gaming, and other immersive experiences: $7 million (11 pages)
• Hypernatural, a generative AI startup that wants to be the Canva for video: $6.8 million (14 pages)
• Scenario, a generative AI startup to create gaming art and assets: $6 million seed (8 pages)
• Sesh, a music startup that connects artists and fans using their mobile wallets: $5 million seed (13 pages)
• Authoritive, an online course-development startup: $5 million seed (11 pages)
• Dstlry, a comic-book creator startup: $5 million seed (26 pages)
• Dharma, a travel startup for creators and brands: $4.7 million pre-Series A (17 pages)
• Glystn, an AI-powered community-management platform: $4 million seed (15 pages)
• Daisy, an influencer marketing startup that launched in 2024: $3.9 million (9 pages)
• Anima, an augmented-reality startup: $3 million (15 pages)
• Grandstand, a sports startup working with athlete creators: $2.75 million
• Seam Social, a new Web3 social-media platform: $2.5 million (10 pages)
• Spark, a digital art platform from the YouTuber Moriah Elizabeth: $2.5 million seed (9 pages)
• Insense, a startup helping e-commerce brands get low-cost ads: $2.5 million pre-Series A (9 pages)
• Supercast, a podcast subscriptions startup: $2 million seed (20 pages)
• Chartmetric, a music-data and -measurement company: $2 million seed (46 pages)
• Ultimate Playlist, a music-marketing startup: $2 million round (9 pages)
• Magroove, a music-distribution and -discovery platform: $1.6 million seed (21 pages)
• Stagetime, a professional-networking startup for performing artists: $1.5 million seed (13 pages)
• Jubilee Media, a content studio looking to expand beyond YouTube and TikTok: $1.1 million seed-plus (12 pages)

Pre-Seed

• Storiaverse, a startup for animators and writers: $2.5 million pre-seed (16 pages)
• July, a “talent manager in your pocket” for creators: $2.3 million pre-seed (9 pages)
• Squads, a startup that helps creators mint and sell crypto coins: $1.8 million pre-seed (12 pages)
• Skye, a career-coaching platform: $1.6 million pre-seed (33 pages)
• Punchup Live, a comedy platform: $1 million pre-seed (19 pages)
• Spore, a content and community-building startup: $1 million pre-seed (17 pages)
• Hashtag Pay Me, a startup that helps creators price brand deals: $200,000 pre-seed (9 pages)
• Our Future, a short-form video-news brand that targets Gen Z: acquired (15 pages)

Other

• Rodeo, a social shopping platform, shared the pitch deck it used to get into an Andreessen Horowitz startup accelerator (11 pages)

• Cracker Barrel unveiled a new logo on Tuesday.
• The chain’s new emblem drew disapproval from some Cracker Barrel fans.
• It’s the latest change at Cracker Barrel in an attempt to turn around its financial results.

Cracker Barrel cooked up a new logo as part of its turnaround plan. Some diners say it’s not what they ordered.

The restaurant chain launched the new logo on Tuesday as part of a fall marketing campaign. The logo includes the Cracker Barrel name in brown letters against a yellow background.

Gone is the man wearing overalls and resting his arm on one of the chain’s namesake barrels — an image the company said was designed to create a “feeling of nostalgia”

The new emblem is the fifth version of Cracker Barrel’s logo, the chain said. While simpler, the yellow background is shaped like a barrel, which makes it “now rooted even more closely to the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all,” the company said.

Shares of Cracker Barrel were trading down 12% on Thursday afternoon.

The logo is the latest part of the Southern food chain to get a makeover. Cracker Barrel has renovated some restaurants to include a streamlined selection of antiques on display and brighter paint jobs.

Cracker Barrel’s menu has also changed, with the chain bringing back some items it served years ago and trying out new dishes.

The goal of the changes is to get more customers coming into Cracker Barrel’s restaurants, executives have said. Last year, CEO Julie Masino said on an earnings call that Cracker Barrel was “not as relevant as we once were.”

Some people on social media have reacted to the changes, including the new logo.

In a TikTok post, one user said the old logo was more recognizable since Cracker Barrel had used it for decades. Until Tuesday, Cracker Barrel had used that logo since 1977.

The new logo is also too simple, the poster said. “I’m all for minimalism, but this is too much,” the person speaking on the video says. “We went too far.”

The new logo also drew ire from the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr. “WTF is wrong with Cracker Barrel?” Trump posted on Wednesday on X.

Do you have a story to share about Cracker Barrel or another restaurant chain? Contact this reporter at ktangalakislippert@insider.com.