Because the creator economic system is rising quickly, model partnerships stay one of many prime methods creators can earn cash. Different providers like link-in-bio apps with affiliate hyperlinks or Pateron-like subscriptions turn into secondary methods to extend creators’ revenue. For platforms and startup, the largest problem stays to match manufacturers and creators for collaboration.
Berlin-based startup Passionfroot is constructing a toolkit and a market for enterprise, productiveness, and thought leadership-focused creators for model collaborations.
The corporate, based by Jen Phan, who had a profession in early-stage investing, has raised $3.8 million in a seed funding spherical led by VC Supernode World, with different buyers together with Miro CEO Andrey Khusid’s s16vc, Sequoia, Accel’s Scout Fund, and Creandum additionally taking part — Creandum beforehand invested within the firm’s $3.4 million pre-seed spherical too. The seed spherical included angels akin to former Zapier CMO Kieran Flanagan, ex-community and creator lead at Notion Ben Lang, Linktree CPO Jiaona Zhang, and Austin Lau, who takes care of Progress at Anthropic.
Earlier than launching Passionfroot, Phan launched a tech publication in 2020 for tech professionals with immigration backgrounds. She thought of leaving her VC function and going full-time on the publication.
“Amid this evolution, a new breed of business-focused creators emerged, producing thought leadership content across platforms like LinkedIn, newsletters, and podcasts. However, after speaking with dozens of creators, I realized that while the creative freedom is appealing, the business side—especially brand partnerships, which serve as a primary revenue stream—remains fragmented and inefficient,” Phan advised TechCrunch.
She added that the choice to construct Passionfroot additionally stemmed from manufacturers struggling to search out related creators, managing the schedule of campaigns, and co-ordinating payouts.
Zain Khan, who’s the founding father of AI-focused publication Superhuman, stated one of many greatest challenges for creators is chasing pending funds from manufacturers and companions.
“In our early days, we had this one $40k payment that didn’t show up for months. We had to chase banks for ages to track and resolve the issue. We were paying salaries out of our personal savings and came very close to going out of business,” he advised TechCrunch over an e-mail.
Passionfroot lets creators construct a storefront for advert or model partnership slots they’ve on their completely different channels, together with newsletters, YouTube, LinkedIn and TikTok. Creators can construct a media package for manufacturers highlighting their model collaboration charges, engagement charges of their channels, and schedules. Creators also can present examples of previous sponsorships on their Passionfroot web page.
The toolkit additionally makes it simple for manufacturers to guide a marketing campaign with creators by way of automated scheduling. Creators can share their pages with manufacturers — similar to a link-in-bio web page. The startup counts Hubspot, Notion, and Freshbook as a number of the model companions.
On the opposite facet of {the marketplace}, the startup has additionally constructed a community the place manufacturers can uncover related creators on the platform. Phan stated that offers booked by way of the community are presently equal to offers booked by way of particular creators’ storefronts.
Passionfroot has a 15% take fee for any model partnership that materializes by way of its community, together with cost charges. The corporate takes 5% in cost charges if a model books a partnership with a creator by way of their storefront.
The corporate is launching its revamped web site with higher creator search and matching performance for entrepreneurs. The platform additionally reveals a match rating to entrepreneurs, serving to them choose one of the best creator suited to a specific marketing campaign. Within the coming months, the startup will construct a dashboard with marketing campaign insights and higher help for advertising groups — reasonably than a person — to make use of Passionfroot.
Sabina Wizander from Creandum belives that Passionfroot has a singular benefit with its give attention to the B2B section.
“The company is starting with the B2B market both from creators and such companies. In this market, there is nothing called being 50% relevant. So the startup has the right product-market fit from the get-go,” she advised TechCrunch over a name.
Based on an eMarketer report, US influencer advertising spending in 2024 is about to be round $7.14 billion, with a 15.8% year-on-year development, signaling that entrepreneurs need to attain shoppers by way of completely different channels.
Gina King, a companion at Supernode World, stated Passionfroot is constructing its product at a really opportune time.
“Passionfroot is well-timed to capitalize on multiple market shifts. The company is not just riding a single trend but is well-positioned to benefit from several concurrent developments in the creator economy, B2B marketing, and technology,” she stated.
King additionally added that 87% of Passionfroot companions are organically, proving that the corporate has a robust community impact.
Startups like VSCO for photographers, Agentio for YouTubers, and Catch + Launch for licensable property have tried to formalize transactions and partnerships between manufacturers and creators. Giant-scale social networks like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok have additionally experimented with constructing platforms round matching manufacturers and creators.
