Bright Raises $15 Million Round Led By Guy Oseary And Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures

Guy Oseary and Michael Powers’ education-focused live video platform, Bright, has raised $15 million in a round led by Oseary and Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures, RIT Capital, and Regah Ventures.

Also participating in the round are Marc Benioff’s TIME Ventures, Globo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Twilio CEO/cofounder Jeff Lawson, fashion mogul Rachel Zoe, Drew and Jonathan Scott, Judd Apatow, Leslie Mann, Amy Schumer, Bethenny Frankel, Ryan Tedder, Shawn Mendes and his manager Andrew Gertler’s AG Ventures, and Kutcher himself.

Additionally, Jessica Alba, Kane Brown, and Maria Sharapova are joining Bright’s company board as advisors.

Bright previously raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Sound Ventures, RIT Capital, and Regah Ventures.

Launched this past May, Bright pitches itself as “a classroom for leveling up your life.” It offers live, pay-to-attend classes from more than 300 celebrities, creators, and experts across a variety of industries, and sets itself apart from other live instruction/video competitors by offering two-way, face-to-face conversations. That means when a user joins a session, they are encouraged to also turn their camera on, so other attendees and the presenting creator(s) can see them, too.

Bright’s creator base includes prominent figures like Madonna, Naomi Campbell, Laura Dern, D-Nice, Lindsey Vonn, and TikTok’s D’Amelio sisters.

The platform says the $15 million raised will help it develop and roll out Creator Studio, “a suite of creator tools for managing learning sessions, audience communication and revenue performance.” It will also introduce more interactive features like instant polls and user-to-user sharing of learning materials, it says.

“It’s inspiring to have the support of incredible investors as well as these notable artists and entrepreneurs. All our partners share Bright’s vision that people want to level up their lives by learning directly from those they admire,” Powers, Bright’s CEO, said in a statement. “We are excited to roll out our new features to continue elevating our platform and mission.”

In his own statement, Apatow said he’s “proud to be investing in a platform like Bright, offering audiences the unique opportunity to learn directly from the artists and experts they admire the most.”

He added, “Through Bright, I can directly share my knowledge with fellow writers, aspiring directors and lovers of comedy.”