Good morning. The creator of TikTok’s Sink Reviews, Dean Peterson, just celebrated 10 years of reviewing sinks around the world on Instagram and TikTok. Just goes to show that no matter how hyper-specific the passion, unbridled enthusiasm will always find the right audience for the long haul.

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

Even as other creator-focused startups have stumbled, creator fintech startup Karat Financial announced a $70 million Series B on Wednesday. The funding was powered by an investor pool including roughly 50 top creators (such as Ludwig Ahgren, Alexandra Botez, and Nas Daily), Karat co-CEO Eric Wei said.

“Creators resonate enough with our mission and care enough about it that they want to put their money in…it’s freaking beautiful, and it’s also terrifying, just being cautious of the responsibility,” Wei told us.

How Karat got here: Wei co-founded Karat in 2019 to help creators manage their business using financial products and services designed to meet their needs.

The company started with a business credit card that offers perks like access to private creator events, but Karat has since moved into helping creators incorporate their businesses, file taxes, and apply for mortgages.

What’s next: After talking with creators who were struggling to negotiate with traditional financial institutions for fair rates for loans and other forms of capital, Karat partnered with Visa to launch a new card that helps creators build personal credit history.

This $70 million raise will help the Karat team “scale out” the new card, Wei said.

Zoom out: Wei and his team have focused on building community among creators—and even bringing some on as investors—as part of an effort to deeply understand what their core users need.

“Having creators as investors means you have people who so firmly believe in what you're doing, they're willing to make time to share their problems and give you feedback when the ways you try to solve them are right,” Wei told us.

Creators including Preston and Linus Tech Tips have recently started experimenting with 24/7 live videos as part of a YouTube/Google beta test. Unlike other 24/7 live streams that play music (such as Lofi Girl), these streams loop videos from a creator’s own catalog.

FYI: PewDiePie created a similar infinity stream that runs through his 3,000+ hours of video content on Twitch earlier this year.

How this beta works:

“[The test] surprised me. It’s like the anti-Google thing to do, so I was interested in participating in it just to see what that looks like,” Linus said. “Is this a potential funnel to bring new people into [my] content and expose videos from the back catalog that haven’t been picked up algorithmically?”

Zoom out: This test comes on the heels of a recent survey by Nielsen that revealed that YouTube and Netflix will soon account for as much TV viewing as all broadcast networks combined.

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In the lead up to today’s Barbie premiere, the film’s ultra-pink themes have colored nearly every industry— fashion, music, food, tech—and creators are no exception.

Zoom out: Few summer blockbusters have been as culturally pervasive as Barbie. By tapping into the zeitgeist’s moment of choice, creators are reaching new audiences and testing new formats.

The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.

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