Creator Ventures, a London, UK-based venture capital firm investing in early-stage consumer-internet companies advancing how people interact, closed its first fund, at $20M.
Investors in Creator Ventures include venture funds-of-funds, family offices and founders of unicorns, several creators and media personalities, and senior leaders from Kaletsky’s former employer, Bridgepoint.
The fund will invest $100-500K first cheques in Seed to Series A startups across four themes. Consumer Social; covering apps across gaming, dating and social. Marketplaces; both consumer and B2B2C marketplaces. Creator Economy; for products or solutions that creators can use and for new experiences. E-Commerce enablement, covering tools for online commerce.
The fund will invest in startups globally.
Creator Ventures has invested in more than ten startups across the US, Europe and Asia. Investments include FACEIT, a UK-based competitive esports gaming platform which exited in early 2022 in a transaction worth $1.5bn. Beehiiv, a US platform for newsletter creators that Social Leverage also backed. Feels, a French Gen-Z dating app backed by Kima Ventures, and Bounce, a General Catalyst and Andreeson Horowitz-backed marketplace for luggage storage.
Creator Ventures was born from the Creative Investment Club, a syndicate fund established in 2019 to invest in startups across consumer-social, consumer-technology and the creator economy. The syndicate enabled celebrities and creators to back startups from Pre-Seed to Series A. This syndicate fund shared deals exclusively with large-scale content creators, athletes, actors and other celebrities.
Following early successes with this syndicate, the two co-founders Sasha Kaletsky and Caspar Lee have launched a venture capital fund to continue their investment strategy. Co-investing strategically alongside influencers and celebrities, including Grammy-award-winning artists, BAFTA-award-winning actors, and premiership footballers.
Sasha Kaletsky most recently was a private equity investor for Bridgepoint. He previously worked at Uber and Boston Consulting Group and completed his MBA at Harvard Business School.
Caspar Lee is a serial entrepreneur, having founded Influencer.com, one of Europe’s largest influencer marketing businesses, and Margravine, a joint venture with WME. Lee was an early YouTube Creator with an audience of six million YouTube subscribers, five million Twitter followers, and more on various other platforms.
FinSMEs
04/07/2022