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Based in West Hollywood, Superjoi’s platform allows creators to run Kickstarter-like campaigns to raise capital for projects, while giving fans the chance to suggest ideas for new content. Creators can also reward fans who chip in by giving them event tickets, merchandise or a personal video call. Later this year, Superjoi plans to help fans reap financial rewards, too—such as a share of advertising revenues generated from projects that they backed.
A screenshot from Superjoi's platform.
Major online platforms like Facebook and YouTube have increasingly monetized the relationship between creators and fans, targeting users with ads and sharing some of the revenues with creators. But Superjoi’s founders contend that fans have been completely cut out of the equation despite driving creators’ successes. In September, the startup began building a platform that would give fans a share of the financial upside, co-founder and CEO Chris Knight told dot.LA.
“Superjoi, as we position it, is liquidity with love,” Knight said. “The reason why we call it that is, for somebody who's creative, there's no better funding source for their creativity than the people who love them—and that’s their fans.”
Knight learned a lot about what he calls “superfans” after helping to build Fantom, a fan-focused smartwatch launched with England’s Manchester City Football Club. The Premier League team consults its fans on decisions relating to its stadium and sponsorships, he noted. “I see huge opportunities in the future for creators to actually have a deeper engagement with their audience and actually mobilize their audience to a new level,” Knight said.
Fans will initially fund projects on Superjoi by buying “supercoins,” an in-platform currency that is worth $1 each. While supercoins are not technically crypto tokens at this stage, the startup envisions letting fans invest in creators, earn a financial return and receive ownership in their content based on tokenization. Superjoi collects a 10% cut of a creator’s fundraising goal.
The platform plans to launch in mid-May with about 25 U.S.-based creators with larger audiences, and will onboard more creators on a waitlisted basis, Knight said. A full public launch is expected later this summer.
Superjoi, which has 14 employees, plans to use the new funds on growing its team, acquiring creators and marketing the platform.
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"Small businesses didn't know if they were allowed to be open, if they were supposed to be doing screening measures for their employees, if they were liable if someone got COVID," said Bambee's CEO Allan Jones, a former ZipRecruiter executive.
Bambee CEO Allan Jones
"We thought there was a void before the pandemic. It was magnified very clearly afterward."
Founded in 2016, Bambee connects clients with managers who can lead tasks such as hires and internal investigations. Jones said his customers span a range of industries from food and beverage to nursing homes.
"The response across the industry has been almost equal in interest. You've got an entire army of the Fortune 500 level focused on making sure the relationship between employee and employer is good," he said, adding that Bambee has few other competitors in for the majority of the businesses they target.
Since March, the company said 10.8% of new clients have been business owners launching companies mid-pandemic. Bambee will use the boost to expand its service offerings.
Alpha Edison and Mucker Capital also participated in the round, which brings the company's total funding to $32 million.