In an excellent signal for shopper web startups, Creator Ventures raises $45M

[ad_1] “I’ve obtained a fairly wild story to let you know,” the early YouTube star Caspar Lee says in a TikTok.

He goes on to inform the story of how a startup founder slid into his LinkedIn DMs with a pitch about an eco-friendly deodorant referred to as Wild. He ignored the message at first, however his cousin Sasha Kaletsky, then a Bridgepoint investor, requested Lee if he and another creators wished to get in on the seed spherical. This April, about 5 and a half years later, Wild bought to Unilever for £233 million, or round $286 million.

Wild can be simply the tip of the iceberg for Kaletsky and Lee. In 2019, they shaped Creator Ventures, a seed and pre-seed enterprise capital fund centered on shopper web corporations. Now, Creator Ventures is launching its second fund with $45 million, greater than double its earlier $20 million fund.

Creator Ventures already has a observe file of creating some stable bets on seed-stage startups. Eleven Labs, an AI audio firm now valued at over $3.3 billion, was a part of Creator Ventures’ Fund I. Quickly after Unilever acquired Wild, one other Creator Ventures-backed firm, Runna, exited to working app Strava. The agency has additionally invested in buzzy publication platform Beehiiv, and it led AI language studying app Praktika‘s seed spherical.

After six years working with its first fund, the Creator Ventures Fund II will proceed investing in consumer-facing corporations, however with a more in-depth eye on AI — that’s not a shock to listen to in 2025.

“There’s a trillion {dollars} of spend that goes by means of the iOS and Android app shops yearly, and if even a small proportion of that turns into taken by shopper AI apps, that’s going to be a complete lot of unicorns,” Kaletsky instructed TechCrunch.

Except for the curiosity in AI, Kaletsky sees another burgeoning traits within the shopper web house. He’s notably desirous about microdrama streaming apps, which have lengthy been fashionable in Asian markets, however have began making an actual dent within the U.S.

“The loopy half about ReelShort, which is fascinating, is the pricing,” Kaletsky stated. “Folks typically don’t notice they’re charging $20 every week… it’s far dearer than Netflix.”

Up to now this 12 months, in line with app retailer information supplier Appfigures, the microdrama apps DramaBox and ReelShort have made $99 million and $152 million from in-app purchases within the U.S., respectively. These figures mirror a 203% and a 233% year-over-year progress from the identical time-frame in 2024.

A few of Creator Ventures’ bets are a bit extra speculative. Kaletsky and Lee are additionally enthusiastic about an app of their portfolio referred to as Standing, a social network-like app the place customers submit updates to an viewers of AI bots, that means that nobody really sees what they submit. The bots may love your posts or cancel you. The corporate markets itself as “Sims however social media.”

These AI bot-filled social community startups have been cropping up during the last 12 months, although to a skeptic, the enchantment of AI-only social experiences could appear doubtful. However in line with Creator Ventures, Standing has over 1 million world customers after launching earlier this 12 months.

Although Creator Ventures isn’t essentially a creator financial system fund, the entrepreneurial parallels between startup founders and content material creators like Lee stay on the middle of the agency’s imaginative and prescient.

“Loads of shopper web founders discover that the true thrilling go-to-market technique is round social,” Lee stated. “Loads of these founders have gotten creators in their very own proper… and that’s one thing I like to get entangled in as somebody who comes from that world.”

Fund II is propped up by Degree, Cendana, Classic, Isomer Capital, Sequoia, and different companions. Kaletsky stated that a few of the Fund II backers hadn’t invested in consumer-dedicated funds in over ten years.