The Creators' Credit Card

How Karat bet on community with its new $70 million fundraise

Good morning. The creator of TikTokā€™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.

Creator Fintech Startup Karat Raises $70 Million

The Karat Card / TubeFilter

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.

ā€œCreators resonate enough with our mission and care enough about it that they want to put their money inā€¦itā€™s freaking beautiful, and itā€™s also terrifying, just being cautious of the responsibility,ā€ 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.

Whatā€™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 ā€œscale outā€ the new card, Wei said.

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

ā€œHaving 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,ā€ Wei told us.

YouTube Tests Cable-Like Features

Linus Tech Tips 24-hour stream ā€œLTT TVā€ / YouTube

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 creatorā€™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.

  • ā€œThe point is for us to do the curation, instead of YouTube doing the curation,ā€ Linus said in a recent podcast. ā€œItā€™s like a channel and less like an algorithm.ā€

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

ā€œ[The test] surprised me. Itā€™s like the anti-Google thing to do, so I was interested in participating in it just to see what that looks like,ā€ Linus said. ā€œIs this a potential funnel to bring new people into [my] content and expose videos from the back catalog that havenā€™t been picked up algorithmically?ā€

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 itā€™s getting easier to make great content. Now, thereā€™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 Uppbeatā€™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

Uppbeatā€™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 Uppbeatā€™s AI Playlist Generator today.

Creators Enter the Barbie Zeitgeist

Amelia Dimoldenberg (left) reported for movie premiere in London on July 12 while Brittany Broski (right) attended the July 10 LA premiere.

In the lead up to todayā€™s Barbie premiere, the filmā€™s ultra-pink themes have colored nearly every industryā€” fashion, music, food, techā€”and creators are no exception.

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

šŸ”„ 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 Proā€”powered by their proprietary bios and rankings.

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

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

šŸ“šļø Thank You For Pressing Publish

The content weā€™re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.

  • Read: Music publication NME is relaunching its print magazine with a ā€œhigh-hype,ā€ limited drop model. ā€œWe believe thereā€™s value in scarcity, and you really see this in the buzzā€¦around sneaker drops,ā€ NMEā€™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 Trahanā€™s latest Penny Series and share their thoughts on how to get a job working with creators.

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