Fan investment platform GigaStar announces $1 million fund to back “established creators”

GigaStar has unveiled another funding opportunity for its community of creators. The Chicago-based company has announced a $1 million fund that will back “established creators earning over $100k in annual YouTube revenue.”

The million-dollar fund is described as a separate entity from GigaStar’s primary product. Last year, the startup raised a $4.8 million seed round to support GigaStar Market, a platform that allows fans to become investors by acquiring stakes in future content produced by participating creators. The GigaStar website indicates that its platform has delivered nearly $1.2 million to creators thus far. The owners of GigaStar’s 12,000 investor accounts have taken in more than $111,000 related to their transactions.

According to a press release, GigaStar’s YouTube Creator Fund will launch “in the coming month.” It will complement GigaStar Market by providing creators with direct support.

“This Fund is another way for us to support creators,” GigaStar CEO Hazem Dawani said in a statement. “In addition to GigaStar Market, which allows creators to gain strategic investors and gives investors access to the $250B Creator Economy via revenue-sharing securities, which are uniquely represented by digital tokens, we will also award grants to select creators to help advance their goals.”

The announcement of the YouTube Creator Fund comes on the heels of a $3 million round that brought GigaStar’s total funding up to $7.8 million. The announcement of that deal included some details about GigaStar’s future plans. As the company continues to build its proprietary investment platform, it will develop a “secondary market” that is expected to launch by the end of 2024.