Creative Juice, a new financial network for digital content creators, today announced it has raised $5 million in seed funding from a roster of investors that includes top YouTubers and industry professionals.
YouTubers MrBeast (55.8 million subscribers), Preston Arsement (16.5M), Carter Sharer (7.7M), Graham Stephan (3M), and Shelby Church (1.64M) have all invested in the nascent company. So have talent management agency Night Media (presumably via its new creator-centric venture fund), record exec Scooter Braun, and Twitch cofounder Justin Kan.
The seed round was co-led by Inspired Capital and Index Ventures, with participation from Slow Ventures and Box Group.
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Creative Juice was founded last year by Sima Gandhi and longtime digital content exec Ezra Cooperstein, who joined Night Media as president in August 2020.
Its debut product, also announced today, is Juice Funds, which it describes as “a groundbreaking way for creators to support each other and invest in their peers’ businesses.”
“As the creator economy has scaled, the financial infrastructure to support this new economic layer has lagged,” Creative Juice says. “By acknowledging that each creator is an independent business, Creative Juice is allowing their community to invest and share in the tremendous value creation occurring across platforms like YouTube, Patreon, and Instagram.”
Up to $2 million of Juice Funds’ first disbursements will come straight from famously generous YouTuber MrBeast. He will invest between $25,000 and $250,000 in “qualifying (and inspiring!) YouTube creators,” per Creative Juice.
“Coming out of my time at Fullscreen, I started to think about what the next generation of financial tools for creators looks like,” Cooperstein said in a statement. “Every creator wants to figure out how to create a sustainable living through their craft, no matter their medium. We are helping creators invest in each other, understand their net worth, and ultimately, build stronger financial infrastructure doing what they’re best at.”
Creative Juice additionally offers “Juicetimates,” a hookup that lets creators connect their accounts to its tools, then receive a revenue projection and business valuation based on their current audience and other factors.
Creators interested in receiving money from Juice Funds can apply on Creative Juice’s website with their email, full name, and a link to their YouTube channel.
