It was a busy fundraising week for link-in-bio platforms, a category of creator startups that help influencers promote their work across social platforms via a single landing page.
This week, Insider's Lauren Johnson reported that a new startup called Key had raised $3 million to help influencers collect contact information from their followers via a linkable page.
And Beacons, another upstart in the link-in-bio category, raised a $6 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Night Media, Atelier Ventures, Loud Capital, and The Chainsmokers' Mantis Fund.
Every Thursday, Insider gives a rundown of news on hires, promotions, and other creator company announcements from the past week. Are we missing anything? Let us know.
New hires, promotions, and departures
- Justin Uberti is joining the audio-chat app Clubhouse as the company's new head of streaming technology. He previously served as a software engineer at Google for almost 15 years, most recently working on its Stadia cloud-gaming product.
- Snap hired Darcie Henry as its new chief human resources officer. Henry joins Snap from Amazon where she worked for over 20 years, most recently as VP of HR, Global Consumer and Operations.
- The cofounder of TikTok parent company ByteDance Zhang Yiming is stepping down as CEO.
New talent signings
- Studio71 signed gaming creator RetroGamingNow, who posts Minecraft videos to 160,000 subscribers on YouTube. The firm has been chasing after gaming talent in recent months.
- Range Media Partners signed Victoria Paris, a TikTok creator based in New York with 1 million followers, Variety reported.
- Jake Paul signed a boxing deal with Showtime Sports, ESPN reported.
- CAA signed the podcast "Smartless," hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, SeanHayes, Deadline reported.
Other creator economy updates
- Key raised $3 million in seed funding from over 50 investors, including Michael Katz, Jonah Goodhart, Bill Wise, and VC firm MathCapital. Read more about the startup here.
- Beacons, a platform that provides link-in-bio mobile webpages for creators, raised $6 million in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Night Media, Atelier Ventures, Loud Capital, and the Mantis Fund. Read more about the company here.
- Topia, a virtual world and video-chat platform, raised $5 million in a seed round led by Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six, with participation from Bonfire Ventures.
- Snap acquired augmented-reality company WaveOptics for more than $500 million, The Verge reported.
Read last week's creator economy updates, here.
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: What makes 'Parasite' so shocking is the twist that happens in a 10-minute sequence