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

Creator Fintech Startup Karat Raises $70 Million

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.

YouTube Tests Cable-Like Features

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:

• Creators select what videos they want to put on stream.

• The 24/7 stream appears on YouTube TV separate from their channel pages, not promoted by an algorithm.

• “The point is for us to do the curation, instead of YouTube doing the curation,” Linus said in a recent podcast. “It’s like a channel and less like an algorithm.”

• Creators edit videos to contain new ads for the stream.

“[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.

Sponsored by Uppbeat

Now You Can Use AI to Soundtrack Your Videos

AI is changing the way we make videos, from editing tools to auto-captions it’s getting easier to make great content. Now, there’s a new AI tool to help you find the perfect music too.

What if you could describe your video, your personality, your channel, or anything in your own words to generate a selection of super relevant copyright-free tracks?

Introducing Uppbeat’s AI Playlist Generator. Fueled by ChatGPT, enter prompts like:

• Cinematic travel vlog for our European vacation

• Sounds like Drake meets David Bowie

• If Godzilla made music

Uppbeat’s AI Playlist Generator will take care of the rest, by crafting a matching playlist of copyright-free music from its world-class catalog of artists and beatmakers.

A premium plan billed annually begins at $5.59 a month, but you can get started with Uppbeat for free. Try Uppbeat’s AI Playlist Generator today.

Creators Enter the Barbie Zeitgeist

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.

• On YouTube, there are over 18,000 videos using #BarbieMovie. The film’s hype has inspired a subgenre of video essays from creators like Liam Thompson and HopeScope, reviews of the movie and the marketing around it, and AI recreations.

• On TikTok, #BarbieTheMovie has over 1 billion views, with creators like Angela Hicks and Jay Will making comedy content based on its themes.

• IRL, creators like Amelia Dimoldenberg and Brittany Broski interviewed stars on the pink carpet at Barbie’s several premieres.

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.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Brittany Broski is starting a new interview show.

• MrBeast launches Feastables in the U.K.

• PinkyDoll opens up to The New York Times about her quick rise to NPC streamer fame.

• Colt Kirwan answers questions from his audience about life as a creator in NYC.

• Discover rising creators before the pack with Famous Birthdays Pro—powered by their proprietary bios and rankings.

• Kylie Jenner launches Stanly, an invite-only platform that connects fans with artists.

• Lemon8, Bytedance’s TikTok follow-up, sees daily downloads fall to 6.7% of its March peak.

📚️ Thank You For Pressing Publish

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

• Read: Music publication NME is relaunching its print magazine with a “high-hype,” limited drop model. “We believe there’s value in scarcity, and you really see this in the buzz…around sneaker drops,” NME’s COO told Variety.

• Watch: TikTok creators Bricks and Disorder make their YouTube debut by recreating an expensive couch.

• Listen: Colin and Samir check in from London to recap Ryan Trahan’s latest Penny Series and share their thoughts on how to get a job working with creators.

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